Until comparatively recently the opportunities for criminal activity on the Internet have been low. However, the volume of business done on the Internet is growing rapidly, ad people order books and other products and make money transactions. All this is creating temptations for hackers.
Hackers are often young people who are obsessed by computers. They use them to prowl the Internet, looking for ways to break into computer systems run by banks, telephone companies and even government department. They look for samples of credit cards and try to steal the numbers.
Recently in America, hackers have been caught testing the security system at the Pentagon, headquarters of the American Defense Department. But still the hackers persist often for a dare “because it’s there” although with what success nobody really knows.
Estimates for worldwide sales on the Internet now range between $US 40 billion and $US 90 billion by the end of the year 2000. Much of this is in publishing and software purchases, which require the disclosure of credit card numbers, but there is really no limit to what can be conducted on the Internet.
“You just don’t give your credit card out to anybody,” experts say. “And in the same way that you should regularly change your credit card access number, you can defeat hackers by regularly changing your Internet password. If you don’t ,it’s like leaving the bank vault door wide open.”
When it comes to creating your password, experts recommend including a few punctuation marks and numbers rather than relying on letters in the alphabet. Telecom media communications manager Gien Sowry says that when it comes to security of credit cards, the Internet offers a higher standard than many others whose honesty is taken for granted.
For example, few people think twice about giving a credit card number over the phone and many are equally careless about what happens to the carbon copy when completing a transaction over the counter.
Some customers may inadvertently reveal their passwords to hackers via what is known as a Trojan horse form of virus. ②These are attached to documents or messages being received, and lodge in a computer’s hard drive. Next time the customer logs on to an Internet service provider the virus reveals where it is and the password to anyone who is prowling the Net looking for such information. They can then tap in.
The two ways to defeat such snooping are:
1) to have an up-to-date virus scanner which can recognise the invader and delete it, and
2) constant password changes.
