With the use of the internet becoming more popular in households, a need for cybersecurity awareness for the common man is more important than ever. Everyday there are cyber attacks that specifically target user ignorance in an attempt to gain access to their password, systems, or any other personal information. Any user who owns a computer should understand how to secure it and how to know if it is secure, but luckily there and numerous resources online from trusted vendors and manufacturers make an effort to have features built into the system such as window anti virus.

One of the ways to know if your computer is safe is by understanding the symptoms of malware. Slow loading times, random command line pop ups, and new files suddenly appearing on the file explorer can all be potential signs of a system being infected with malware. Another way to verify safety is through virus scans. Operating systems such as windows come with pre-installed virus scanners that scan system files to verify integrity. Some may think that alone is enough but malware doesn’t only live in system files, fileless viruses and malware that lives in the boot sector would easily be able to evade these types of scanners. Having a trusted 3rd party scanner to cover these areas is essential to having well rounded security.

In many ways computers have added and subtracted from safety in the world, three of them would be secure messaging, increased susceptibility to crime, and wide spreading of information. With the invention of the computer also came the invention of cryptography which is essentially the study of securing communications. Powerful encryptions have been created to secure sensitive information while traversing the internet, as opposed to delivering messages physically or through insecure means over the internet. The increased susceptibility to crime is also correlated to the increased use of computers. Attacks such as identity theft have significantly increased due to the attackers being able to cast a bigger net for attacks. Before the internet it was basically impossible for someone located in a different country to commit a crime against someone else, but with computers it has now become possible and tactics to bait more ignorant users are rampant. The wide spreading of information can be seen as a double edged sword because a well informed person should technically make better decisions but with the constant intake of information it becomes difficult to determine who is a trusted and neutral source. Misinformation can cloud judgment and destroy a person’s perception of the world.