Our Favorite Network – The Internet



Protecting Yourself Online

In the previous chapters, you've learned about all the wonderful things you can find on the Internet. It's a phenomenal resource. However, you need to be aware of some of the possible dangers and examine ways to ensure your protection while you enjoy the bounties on the Internet.

All types of people from all around the world use the Internet. The very nature if the Internet means there is some risk that people can intrude into your system. One of the most common problems the average computer user has is people breaking into your computer and using it as a base from which they launch other attacks. These computer criminals often use someone else's computer to protect their own identity and to prevent capture by the authorities.

There are also other types of threats, such as companies that track what you do on the Internet and those who use the Internet as a way to stalk people. While there is no guarantee you will not have problems with security, there are many things you can do to protect yourself while using the Internet. In this chapter, you will examine some of those methods.

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How Do I Protect Myself From People Trying to Attack My Computer?

There are different types of threats to you and your computer from the Internet. While some are trying simply to track your habits, there are others actually trying to attack your computer system.

Who wants to get in?

There are many different types of individuals who may be attacking your computer from the outside, trying to get into your system. Some of the biggest threats from the outside include hackers, viruses, and spam.

Hackers

A hacker was originally a slang term for a computer enthusiast. However, the term has come to have a much more ominous meaning. A hacker now defines someone who gains unauthorized access to your computer system for the purpose of stealing or destroying data. Most hackers prefer to be called crackers.

Hackers have many different ways of interfering with your system or stealing information. Some of the most common methods and how they can harm your system include:

▪ Trojan horse programs: are small programs that people can download onto their system, thinking they are useful files, but actually provide a way for hackers to access and destroy your data or run some other program.

▪ Denial of service attacks: are designed to make it impossible for the Web site or network to function normally. The hacker creates a program that continually requests random information from the site or network. This creates so much traffic that the real users cannot get through to the site.

▪ DNS spoofing: hackers alter the DNS number so that if you type in as the URL you want to visit, you are redirected to an alternate site. Sometimes the alternate site contains negative information about the Web site owner.

▪ Packet sniffers: a program that monitors information on the network. Although packet sniffers can be used for legitimate purposes while managing a network, they can also be used by hackers to gather information from network traffic.

▪ Social engineering: is a term used by hackers to describe a con game designed to get information from you that you would not normally give to strangers. On the Internet, the con often involves putting up a false site or sending a false e-mail so people think they are providing information to a real company.

▪ Web page defacement: the hacker gets in and changes the page so that when someone accesses the site's homepage, or some other page, incorrect information displays. Over the past few years, The CIA, The Republican National Committee, and The New York Times have all had Web pages on their sites defaced.

Viruses and Worms

There are software applications that go out over the Internet to various computers and networks causing damage on the systems. There are several types of applications commonly called viruses and worms. While a person creates the software application initially, once released, the virus or worm locates vulnerable computers and infects them on its own.

A hacker creates a virus to demonstrate power over the system, yet even the most benign viruses can wreak havoc and cost millions of dollars in damages. For example, the Melissa virus, the first virus attached to an e-mail message, has caused more than $80 million in damage since its 1991 release.

Today, there are thousands of viruses unleashed every year. In 1990, there were between 200 and 500 viruses; that number had reached 50,000 by the year 2000.

There are numerous types of viruses and worms:

▪ Viruses on computers are named after the biological viruses because they start out very small, make copies of themselves, and cannot exist without a host. Computer viruses are usually found on the computer systems of unsuspecting people. Sometimes viruses can remain hidden until something triggers the program to become active. This can be a date, a sequence of events, or opening another program and they usually do some type of harm to the host computer.

▪ A worm is similar to a virus in that it makes multiple copies of itself, but it doesn't need a host to infect a computer. Worms are often transmitted through electronic mail. Although originally worms were not intended to be malicious, today's worms do cause severe network congestion and can destroy files. In fact, the most destructive worm of all time, known as ILOVEYOU, has caused in excess of $7 billion in damages.

E-mail Spam

E-mail spam is the junk mail of the electronic world and it costs very little to send out these unsolicited and usually unwanted messages to millions of people around the world. While no hacker sits and breaks into your computer to send you spam, you do get an unwanted message that intrudes into your e-mail system and takes up time and space. Although corporations are aware of the threat posed by viruses and worms and spend millions of dollars each year on anti-virus software, e-mail spam remains one of the largest corporate problems. It can also be bothersome on even small home networks and for individual e-mail users. Just as there are ways to reduce the risk of infection from a virus, there are ways to reduce the amount of spam you receive.

You get e-mail spam for a variety of reasons. The most common way people get spam is by signing up for it, even if they don't realize it. Some ways your e-mail address ends up in the hands of spammers include:

▪ Automatically through the use of software tools called Webcrawlers, or spiders, that crawl out on the Web checking for e-mail addresses, which are then saved and used to generate e-mail spam.

▪ Signing a guestbook on a page and including your e-mail address in the entry.

▪ Signing up for free things, such as prizes or even newsletters.

▪ Replying to existing spam, which confirms your e-mail address.

▪ Listing your name and e-mail address in online yellow pages.

▪ Participation in newsgroups.

▪ Registering your domain name and including your personal information.

▪ Completing online profiles.

▪ Participating in chat rooms.

Who's watching me?

In addition to people and software trying to intrude on your system and gain access to it, there are other types of software designed to watch you. This software, generally known as adware or spyware and including such things as cookies, surveillance, parental controls, and blocking software have a variety of functions. These applications can track your Internet surfing habits, send data back to someone else without your permission, change your start page in your browser so a different page loads when you start your browser, even alter your system files.

Adware and Spyware

Adware is software that flashes advertising banners across your screen while another program is running. The software slows down your system.

Spyware is software that sends information back to someone else, without your permission, about what you do online. This is usually done for advertising purposes and can also slow down your system and cause crashes.

In addition to collecting information from your computer without your permission, spyware transmits a code that tracks your activities as you surf the Web, installs itself on your computer, and can even change the files on your system.

Cookies

Cookies are not necessarily bad and can make your online life a lot easier. However, you need to know how they function and what they can do. A cookie is a small text file that contains data. It is not a program or a virus and cannot be used to spread viruses. Figure 4-1 shows a sample cookie.

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Figure 4-1

Sample Cookie

Cookies store a variety of information. If you create a custom start page on My MSN, for example, the next time you log into your computer, the page displays your settings. That's because the username and password information is stored in a cookie. If you make a purchase on the Internet, you can save a shopping cart using cookies. Cookies are designed so that only the site that created the cookie can read it. So, if you go to and create a wish list, Barnes and Noble cannot access the cookie to see what's on your wish list at the other bookstore.

Surveillance Tools

There are a variety of reasons why someone might want to use snooping tools, the common term for surveillance tools, to examine the e-mails you send and receive along with the Web sites you visit. The two most common uses of these tools are by the FBI and by corporations to examine their employees or by schools to track sites that students visit.

The FBI uses a system called DCS 1000, popularly known as Carnivore. Carnivore is the online equivalent of a wiretap. Through Carnivore, the FBI can examine a person's e-mails and track Web site visits.

Another popular use of snooping tools is by corporations tracking employees and by schools tracking students. There are a couple of different methods of tracking which Web sites students and employees visit. The sniffer software creates a log file that records visited Web sites and which employee or student was visiting the site. More sophisticated software is called keystroke loggers, which record every key pressed on the computer and sends that information back to someone tracking it.

Parental controls and blocking software

As discussed, there are no absolute guarantees on the Internet. However, there are numerous tools designed to make it difficult for people to get personal information. Some of the most popular controls on the Internet are parental controls. Corporations often use these same types of controls to prevent employees from viewing certain sites. All public schools must have filtering programs installed. As you navigate the Web at school, you might encounter blocks if you try to view material on a page that contains one of the keywords that might be flagged as possibly offensive or unsuitable for a non-adult audience.

Some online services, such as MSN, offer ways to block access to objectionable material on the Internet. Numerous independent programs on the market today add blocks to your computer. Most browsers include some controls to prevent users from viewing specified sites without a password.

The software you can purchase to block certain sites all works in about the same way. The software is installed on each computer. When the person enters a URL, the software checks that URL against a database of objectionable sites. If the site is listed, the software blocks the site and the person is unable to view that site without the proper password clearance. If the URL is not listed in the database, the software scans the site, looking for keywords. If those words are found, the software blocks the site. Most of these software packages update the database monthly to keep up with the rapid growth on the Internet.

How do I keep these people out?

As you have seen, many different people make an effort to access computers. There is, however, a variety of tools designed to make that process difficult and in some cases, close to impossible. The most common ways to keep people out of your system is by using firewalls, anti-virus software, anti-spam software, and by using safe Internet practices.

Firewalls

In the real world, a firewall is constructed between buildings to keep your property safe. If a dangerous fire threatens your home from the outside, the firewall keeps you safe. In a computer network, a firewall is software and/or hardware installed to protect your network from the previously discussed threats coming in from the Internet Firewalls monitor all traffic coming and going to the Internet as well as monitoring traffic on the same network. The firewall will only allow certain information to pass through to the network. This keeps all malicious code from passing between the Internet to your computers. The firewall also hides your computer network from the Internet, making an attack much less likely.. Figure 4-2 illustrates the concept of a firewall on a network.

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Figure 4-2

Firewall

Corporate firewalls combine hardware and software to offer serious protection to the corporate network. Home computers with a high-speed modem are also vulnerable to attack. Because of this, personal firewalls are more popular than ever. This is also usually a combination of hardware and software that protects the computers from hackers.

Anti-virus software

One of the biggest threats to computer systems is viruses. There is software you can purchase, called anti-virus software that runs on your system and checks all incoming and outgoing files for viruses. This includes files and e-mails you receive online, items you download, and files you introduce via CD-ROMs and floppy disks.

Most anti-virus software vendors have samples you can download and use for a limited time and many new computers come with a trial version of the software.

No matter which one you choose, keep the software updated. Many vendors offer a service where, for a set fee each year, you can get regular downloads to update the software and many even check for updates daily.

Anti-spam software

There is anti-spam software designed to filter spam. You can create a basic filter in most e-mail software. For example, you can set up rules that let you separate mail based on words in the headers. You can also create rules that delete e-mails based on words in the headers, the recipient, or key words in the body of the e-mail.

You can also buy software for your computer that adds to the capabilities of your e-mail application.. You can get a range of anti-spam software, from software that simply isolates suspected spam to software that restricts all e-mail addresses not specifically on an allowed address list.

Ways to help you avoid virus infections

As discussed earlier, there is no 100% guarantee that you will never get a virus on the Internet, never receive spam, or never be at risk. You can use the tools available and then you must use common sense and practice safe Internet habits. Some of the ways you can help avoid getting a computer virus include:

▪ Always run anti-virus software and keep it up to date. Set the software to automatically scan your system during low-use times, such as midnight on Saturday.

▪ Do not open an e-mail attachment unless it is something you asked be sent to you.

▪ Obtain software only from sources you trust. Research companies before you purchase and download any software.

▪ Turn off the Preview option in your e-mail software.

▪ Keep your operating system updated with security patches. If your system does not do this automatically, visit the Microsoft update site at

How Do I Protect Myself From People Who Want to Use My Information?

In addition to people wanting to break into your computer, there are also people who want to get personal information about you.

How do people get my information and why do they want it?

There are people who attack computers to find out personal information. In many cases, they target the databases of large corporations that keep records such as social security numbers, bank account numbers, and credit card numbers on file for their customers. However, it's not unheard of for crooks to target individuals who share their information over the Internet without regard for proper security.

One of the most popular uses for stolen information is identity theft. Identity theft occurs when someone uses someone else's identification to impersonate that person. The thief then uses the "new" identity to open checking and credit card accounts to get cell phones, purchase automobiles, and for a variety of other reasons.

Credit card fraud is the most common identity theft. Although online fraud is not nearly as prevalent as fraud committed using things like discarded receipts, the Internet is a target because of its sheer size and anonymity.

How do I keep my information safe?

Even though there are people out there who will abuse the Internet, you can use it with a few precautions.

There are secure ways to transfer data as well as some guidelines for sharing your information.

Secure sites and encryption

You should never send personal information to strangers. That is the best safeguard of all. Young children should be taught never to give their real names, addresses, or other information online. As you get older, however, you will find times when you might need to share information online. If you are certain of the recipient, for example to purchase something online, to fill out a college application, or to complete a financial aid form, you can be assured that the information is safe if you use a secure site that includes encryption technology. Encryption is the process of encoding information that you send so that only the intended person or computer can read that information.

Figure 6-3 shows a secure Web page.

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Figure 6-3

Secure Web Site

Notice the lock icon at the bottom right of the status bar and the page URL that specifies HTTPS. The lock indicates the site is encrypted using Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL. SSL is included in most browsers and is a protocol, or set of rules, used to transmit information in a secure way. When you transmit something using the HTTP protocol and you enter a secure area of the site, the HTTP will change to HTTPS.

Safe practices for sharing information online

Even when you are working with secure sites, you should keep a few guidelines in mind when sharing information online. Below are some of the ways you can safeguard against your personal information falling into the hands of the wrong people:

▪ Never give out more information than is necessary.

▪ On secure sites, you will often have to log in with a username and password. Your passwords should not be something obvious, at least eight characters long, and a combination of letters and numbers.

▪ Use the latest version of your Internet browser. The newer browsers keep up to date on advances in encryption and other security issues.

▪ Read the site's privacy policy. You don't want to provide detailed personal information to a site that will sell that information to a mailing list.

▪ Keep records of all your Internet transactions.

Should you ever have reason to believe that someone has used your information in the wrong way, contact the credit card companies immediately then notify the police.

How Do I Protect Myself From People Who Want to Hurt Me?

While having someone steal your identity and run up massive debt with your credit cards is a traumatic experience, the far worse scenario is giving personal information to a stranger and having that person become a threat to your safety in real life.

Who would want to hurt me and how would they find me?

There are people in the world who stalk young people and try to lure them out online. Once they befriend you online, by understanding the issues and unique dilemmas you deal with as a teenager, they then encourage you to give them personal information and meet them at some nearby location.

Perhaps it is an innocent person who only wants to be friends, and maybe the person in the chat room really is another 15-year-old guy who wants to just hang out and listen to music. However, many times that is just a front and your online chat buddy is really a dangerous person. Since you can't be sure, you must never give personal information online to strangers.

Chat rooms and instant messaging are popular ways for these people to get access to young people. You can listen to the real life story of a young woman who befriended someone in an online chat room and what happened to her by visiting and clicking on Amy's Choice.

How do I stay safe?

Even though there are people out there who use the Internet for these unsavory purposes, you don't have to be afraid of going online. With a few simple guidelines, you can ensure your online experience is positive. You can follow these guidelines to make sure no one who wants to hurt you has access to your personal information:

▪ Always turn to a parent, guardian, or teacher for help with the Internet.

▪ Never give out personal information in any chat room or instant messenger service.

▪ Never agree to meet someone in person you have met online.

▪ Never send a picture of yourself to someone online.

▪ Never give out information such as your full name, your address, your school, your schedule, or family information to someone you do not know.

What You’ve Learned About Protecting Yourself Online

In this lesson, you examined ways to protect yourself while online. You examine three basic threats: those trying to attack your computer, those trying to get your information, and those who want to hurt you personally. You learned how to use a combination of software, hardware, and some basic guidelines to have a safe online experience.

What's Next?

In the next chapter, you will begin the planning necessary to create your own network.

Terms to Know

Review the following terms:

Adware

Anti-spam software

Anti-virus software

Cookie

Cracker:

Denial of service attack

DNS spoofing

E-mail extractors

Encryption

Firewall

Hacker

Identity theft

Keystroke loggers

Packet sniffers

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

Snooping tools

Social engineering

Spam

Spider

Spyware

Trojan horse programs

Virus

Webcrawler

Web page defacement

Worm

Suggested Web Sites

NetSmartz:

Stay Safe Online:

CyberPatrol:

Safe Teens:

Safe Kids:

1 Examine two of the sites above and answer the following questions.

a. Which Web site did you examine?

b. What type of Web site is this? Are they trying to sell something? If so, what do they want to sell? If the site is selling something, do they also have information you can use?

c. Who published this site? Explain a little about the organization or company that owns the site. Would you consider this a safe site? Why or why not?

d. Did this site lead you to other sites? If so, give one site you found helpful that you discovered from this site.

e. Was there information that you found useful on this site about safety on the Internet? Explain,

f. What is your overall impression of the site?

g. Are there things you think parents and teachers need to view on this site? Explain.

Questions for Review

1. Discuss some of the common dangers there are to your computer from outside influences over the network.

2. What are some of the biggest risks to you personally online?

3. What are some of the reasons why someone might want to get your personal information online?

4. Based on all the precautions you read in this chapter, develop a list of the top rules for safely using the Internet.

5. Discuss the similarities and differences of a virus, a worm, a Trojan horse, and spam.

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Chapter

4

In this chapter, you will answer these questions:

▪ Who wants to get into my computer?

▪ Who's watching me?

▪ How do I keep them out?

▪ How do people get my information and why do they want it?

▪ How do I keep my information safe?

▪ Who would want to hurt me and how would they find me?

▪ How do I stay safe online?

Tip:

If you want to forward an e-mail to someone, you are usually best to copy just the pertinent information and paste it into a new e-mail. That way you will reduce the chance of sending on a threat to someone else unknowingly.

Note:

Even if you don't have a credit card or bank account in your own name, it's good practice to get in the habit of following these same rules for signing up for give-aways and free items online. You are still providing personal information and need to be aware of how the site will use that information.

Note:

To transfer information over the Internet, it must be broken down into something called packets. These small bits of information go out over the network and are then put back together on the other end so that it all makes sense. So the packets all get back in the right place, they contain information in a header that helps identify them.

warning

Never give personal information or credit card numbers to someone sending you an e-mail asking you to provide information. Your credit card company does not need you to re-enter your card number.

For more Information about viruses:

To get more information about viruses and worms and how to avoid them, check out these Web sites:







for more information about Spam:



overview





note

There are several good programs designed to block adware and spyware. Some of those include:

Spybot Search & Destroy:

Lavasoft Ad-aware:

MicroSmarts Spyware BeGone!:

Spyware Doctor 2.0:

NoAdware:

Spyware Eliminator:

Spyware C.O.P:

Read more at OptOut:

Privacy & YOur Life

Just what do people know about you? Check out these sites:







warning:

New viruses and other methods of intruding into computer systems are introduced almost daily. Check your anti-virus software's online site, such as for the latest updates.

In addition, there are warnings that frequently go out over the Internet abut new dangers and new viruses. While many of these are legitimate concerns, many more are hoaxes. To verify the accuracy of a potential virus or danger, check out Hoax Busters at .

More on Firewalls...







Anti-virus software:

Symantec Anti-Virus:

McAfee VirusScan®:

AVG Anti-Virus:

Anti-spam Software:

McAfee Spamkiller:

SpamAgent:

Spam Inspector:

Choosing a home firewall system...

You should install a firewall on every network, even a home network. Although you will get information about the installation in chapter 6, you can check out the available software at these sites:

Symantec Firewall:

McAfee Personal Firewall:

Kerio Personal Firewall:

Note:

A helpful practice is to use one password for all the "fun" Web sites, such as games, chatting, etc., and another password for sensitive transactions, such as purchasing books at . In that way, your sensitive transactions are less likely to be compromised. Never use things like your birthdate, phone number, or name.

Note:

A good practice is to get the usernames for your friends and set up your instant messenger software so that only the people on your list can see you and send you messages. You and your friends can even open a private chat room, but no one else will be allowed inside.

A few web sites for teens:

Yahooligans:



Disney:

Discovery Channel:



Sports Illustrated for Kids:

Hyperville Kids:



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