Keeping information secure in the workplace

Hacking

A hacker is a person who breaks codes and passwords to gain unauthorised entry to computer systems. A system hacker knows about designing and maintaining operating systems and a password hacker knows how to find out someone else's password.

Computer hacking is most common among teenagers and young adults, although there are many older hackers as well. Many hackers enjoy learning more about how computers work and get excitement out of cracking the security of remote computer systems. They often enjoy programming and have expert-level skills in one particular program. For these individuals, computer hacking is a real life application of their problem-solving skills.

The purpose of hacking could be anything like to get money illegally, destroying the network, stealing, for the fun or some other motives as well. There are very small numbers of computer hackers in the world because hacking requires lot of knowledge.

To prevent this from happening
Network security
Your business needs to stay on top of changes that could affect the security of your LAN. Keep your operating system updated with the latest security patches and bug fixes. Assign access to directories and other network resources on a need-to-have basis, and remove a user's account immediately when they leave your company. Use network logging and security tests to check your network for security holes and possible break-ins.
Passwords
One bad password can compromise your entire network. Avoid passwords that contain dictionary words or personal information, and require users to change their passwords regularly. When an employee leaves the company, disable their password immediately as part of the termination process.

Viruses

Computer viruses are programs written by people who set out to harm or destroy another person’s data. These virus programs are placed into emails or files so that program will run the attached virus program, therefore, it is said that the virus infects the file or program. They take the term virus from the biological word, because they do just what a real virus would do to a human.

A virus is inactive until you execute an infected program or application or start your computer from a disk that has infected system files. Once a virus is active, it loads into your computer's memory and may save itself to your hard drive or copies itself to applications or system files on disks you use.

Some viruses are programmed specifically to damage the data on your computer by corrupting programs, deleting files, or even erasing your entire hard drive. Many viruses do nothing more than display a message or make sounds at a certain time. Other viruses make your computer's system behave erratically or crash frequently. Sadly many people who have problems or frequent crashes using their computers do not realize that they have a virus and live with the inconveniences.

To prevent this from happening
Purchase anti virus software
Purchase and install an antivirus program such as Kaspersky Antivirus, Norton Antivirus or McAffe Antivirus on every computer attached to the network. This is the only way to protect them all against infection. Some companies provide discounts or bulk licenses for multiple
Keep anti virus software updated
Keep all antivirus programs updated. An antivirus program that isn't updated will not prevent new virus infections. Update all the antivirus programs on the network when they're installed and schedule regular updates.
Install firewalls
Install software firewalls on all of your computers. Installing a software firewall is important in preventing worms from spreading in your network. A worm is like a virus, but instead of using files or emails to spread, it will exploit vulnerabilities in networked computers. Worms are often so effective that every computer on your network can be infected in minutes.

Fraud

Fraud means to pretend you are someone else and use their money, accounts to buy things or subscribe to things in their name. Fraud has been around for a long time, it is not something that has only recently arrived with the Internet.

With more consumers discovering the convenience of e-commerce they now feel comfortable purchasing goods and services online. As the internet continues to thrive with technology and millions in sales, the malicious crime of fraud has become a bigger issue.

These individuals who do this crime have easy access to advanced software that enables them to manipulate your computer to obtain the sensitive information they want. To make matters worse, you can be a victim of computer fraud without even knowing your machine has been compromised.

It is important your business protects itself from this because many businesses are not doing enough to protect their own data and that of employees and customers.

Data misuse

Copying and illegal transfer of data is very quick and easy using online computers and large storage devices such as hard disks and CDs. company research, written work and Personal data such as your customer’s names and email addresses they provided for payment processing, can all be copied without permission.
The thing that is worth the most to any company is their data. If a machine breaks down or gets stolen, a company can go out and buy a new one to replace it. It costs them a big amount of money, but they can probably find the money from somewhere.
Where as, if they lose their data, this is very hard to replace. For example they could lose their customer list, lose their sales records, lose their accounts or lose all the information about their product.
To prevent this from happening
The best way to protect against this is to encrypt the data and place it into some sort of restricted access controlled tracking repository such as a document management system.

Such systems prevent any access without a password and will record the details (time, terminal, logged in ID) of both successful and unsuccessful access attempts. This provides traceability and so deters casual miss-use.

This also typically permit access to specific records in limited sets i.e. you can search for any record but the system will never show you more than a few hits at one time, this prevents easy access to, and copying of, the entire database.

Unauthorized transfer or copying

Unauthorized transfer is this includes copying music and movies with computer equipment and distributing it on the Internet without the copyright holder's permission. This is a widespread misuse of both computers and the Internet that breaks copyright regulations.

Unauthorized transfer or copying can be very easy using large storage devices such as hard drives, CDS and USB pen drives. Any type of data can be copied all too easy without permission if the branch does not have secure processes in place.

Adware, Spyware & Malware
Adware or advertising supported software is any software package which automatically plays, displays, or downloads advertisements to a computer after the software is installed on it or while the application is being used. Some types of adware are also spyware and can be classified as privacy-invasive software. It is typically used to place ads on your computer. If you’re visiting a well-known Web site from a legitimate company, and lots of pop ups appear its likely that those pop up ads might not have come from that company at all. It could be that some adware running in the background is generating the ads and displaying them as if they were a part of the company’s Web site.
Spyware is software that hides itself somewhere on your computer collecting information about you and what you do on the internet. It can invade your privacy by passing on your personal details without you even knowing that this is what it is doing. Typically, spyware might transmit things like passwords, information about your operating systems, network share information, or even information about your domain structure. If you shop on the internet using your credit or debit cards some spyware can record your credit card details. Spyware is known to change computer settings, resulting in slow connection speeds, different home pages, and loss of internet or functionality of other programs. In an attempt to increase the understanding of spyware, a more formal classification of its included software types is captured under the term privacy-invasive software.
Malware is another form of spyware. It's short for malicious software and is often designed to cause damage to your computer system just like a virus does.
To prevent this from happening

Be careful where you download, don’t download from sites you don’t trust.

Download anti-virus software.

Read the pop up before You Click, Sometimes when you visit a web site a text box might pop up. Many users simply consider these a nuisance and will just click away to make the box disappear. Stop to read the message before you click ok.

E-mail and chat room abuses
Unnecessary and badly written e-mails cost companies in the UK millions each year, according to the latest research by business-writing consultants Emphasis.
According to research from the company, employees in many British companies engage in time-wasting e-mail practices that cut into worker efficiency and drive down profitability. All of this comes as the volume of business mail rises steadily in the UK, forcing workers to cope with ever-increasing mountain of messages in their inboxes.
Much of this e-mail traffic is unnecessary. Often messages are copied to colleagues, or many people e-mail their colleagues when it would have been easier to pick up the phone or even to walk to their desk and talk to them.
This overuse, along with poorly written e-mails, can cost some companies up to £10,000 per person, per annum, senior staff at some of Britain's biggest firms told Emphasis. One FTSE 100 firm reported annual e-mail costs of £39 million.

Computer Crime General Information
Computer crime is any criminal act which is committed using ICT. Where there are ways to make money, there will be criminals just waiting to take advantage.
The growth of the ecommerce has provided criminals with a whole load of different methods to try to steal from you.
There are various reasons why these computer criminals do this, it could be to: • Steal money • Steal data or information • Steal someone's identity • Damage or disrupt someone's system for revenge • Cause general havoc for fun • Copy software / films / music to avoid paying for it.