Virus's
A virus is a piece of software which copies itself from one computer to another, it does this by attaching itself to files and is transferred via email programs files images or from the internet- it can do some damage to your machine for example it can corrupt and or delete files, corrupt or delete everything on your hardrive and even make some software unusable.
The best way to prevent this is by buying or installing some sort of anti virus software, this will try to prevent viruses from getting on to your machine and will get rid of the ones that are present.
The best way to prevent this is by buying or installing some sort of anti virus software, this will try to prevent viruses from getting on to your machine and will get rid of the ones that are present.
Encryption
This is used to stop data getting into the wrong hands. Encryption works by scrambling data as its transferred from the sender to the recipient. The data is not readable unless you have the encryption software or key.
Encryption should be used for:
Encryption should be used for:
- Sending payment details
- Online banking
- Confidential emails
- Sensitive information
- Sending data between computers.
Hacking
Hacking is gaining unauthorized access to a network or part of a network. This may lead to them illegally copying deleting and or changing data on that network. Protection is in place though, all emails are encrypted and so are all confidential pieces of data such as credit card details or personal information. Drawbacks are there though, data can still be deleted and criminals themselves can actually encrypt data to keep their incriminated material secure.
The Data Protection Act
The data protection act has been put in place to help people have their data secure and set in place more laws and rights on the internet as at the time it was a new thing that was not very well protected by laws. The latest version of this act was released in 1998, some of the main points of this act are that if a company or organisation has data stored about you the act gives you the right to see this data apart from some exemptions such as the police and some parts of the government. Other main parts include the right to ask an organisation to change the data about you if it is incorrect and the organisation can also not send that data outside of the European economic zone. But first and foremost the organisation needs to make sure that the data is secure and safe.