Safety in the computer driven world
With a world growing increasingly dependent on computers running everything from our refrigerators to security checkpoints, mankind’s goal is to increase convenience and security in our everyday life. Sometimes however, these increases in technology actually lead to less security in some instances. Technology is a double-edged sword, and depending on the intentions of the user, it can be used to help or hurt whether it be through scams, physically stopping you from using a service, or on the more helpful side, helping to prevent car accidents. “Phishing Attack disguises themselves as a trustworthy entity to gain a user’s password, username, credit card, and banking information usually via E-mails, instant messages, advertisements, and social websites.” (Kirkpatrick, 2018). This type of scam relies on the ignorance or negligence of the victim while using their internet connected device. The scammer in this case sends the victim a convincing email, ads, or instant messages designed to look official, with the intent to get the victim to click on a link that can install keyloggers, malware, and trojans or any virus they want really. By disguising malicious links as links to a bank login or the like, scammers can get the victim to input sensitive data that can give access to various websites or personal accounts.
Distributed Denial of Service attacks (DDOS) are when somebody uses a host of computers, sometimes called zombies or botnets, to either hog the bandwidth of a website to slow it down and make it difficult for legitimate users to access the website, or overload its server with pings and requests for data and take the website completely down for a period of time. Luckily, these can be detected by constant monitoring and being on the look-out for unusual CPU usage or unusually high amounts of internet traffic. These attacks can close a website down, shutting off access to customers or users and can affect the livelihood of the owner of the site, especially if it contributes significantly to their income. On the brighter side of safety, many cars now include automatic braking systems that can apply brakes when something crosses in front of a sensor in the front or back of the car, as well as backup cameras that show you what’s immediately behind your vehicle while in reverse. Safety features like this can drastically increase driving safety by reducing the likelihood of crashes caused by driver inattention or reaction time that isn’t quick enough.
References
Kirkpatrick C. (2018) Week 8 & Week 10 – Mod 4 – Computer Behaviors and Cybersecurity [Blackboard slides]. Retrieved from https://www.blackboard.odu.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/displayLearningUnit?course_id=_ 337579_1&content_id=_7299628_1