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How does Web application security affect me?
Web Applications are compromised daily and now account for the majority of vulnerabilities on the Internet.
Web application weaknesses are a major way that cyber criminals, working with hacking techniques, can steal sensitive data. With this data, nefarious crooks can affect companies and individuals alike; there is little distinction between Fortune 500 Companies and an end user with a credit card. They often just follow the path of least resistance.
Online data theft is not a game. While some hackers will brag about having breached the security of a web application and gained access to sensitive data, the criminals have money, not bragging rights in their cross-hairs. Extortion is sometimes the name of the game. If data can be held at ransom by thieves, depending on how sensitive the data is, they can demand a huge sum of money.
The ways that companies and individuals are affected by web application attacks are numerous. Imagine this “what if” situation. A large Fortune 500 company is attacked by an orchestrated attack and the credit card numbers are taken and held at ransom by an organized crime group. Word gets out and the Fortune 500 company under goes a huge investigation and security audit. The clients and customers of the company lose trust in the security of the company and start taking their business elsewhere. The company then starts losing revenue and the customers begin to find that their credit cards are being charged illegally. The credit card companies are involved and are losing money as well. Nobody is immune to these web application attacks, whether its large company or one individual.
As programmers design web applications to be more accessible and easy to use, often these features are targets for crime groups to attack. Programmers must protect their applications by following secure coding practices to filter out any attacks and create a safe place for their clients customers to do business.
One of the major ways hackers breach a web application are through SQL injection attacks. SQL injection attacks can be used to access sensitive data or do any number of destructive things to the data stored in the web application’s database. Cross-site scripting attacks are also prevalent. This attack occurs when malicious code is inserted and executed when a user loads an infected page. Denial of service attacks are also popular. This happens when the network hosting a web application is swamped with useless requests sent out by the criminals which creates so much traffic that the network or system crashes.
Its a wild world out there…
How does Web application security affect me?
Web Applications are compromised daily and now account for the majority of vulnerabilities on the Internet.
Web application weaknesses are a major way that cyber criminals, working with hacking techniques, can steal sensitive data. With this data, nefarious crooks can affect companies and individuals alike; there is little distinction between Fortune 500 Companies and an end user with a credit card. They often just follow the path of least resistance.
Online data theft is not a game. While some hackers will brag about having breached the security of a web application and gained access to sensitive data, the criminals have money, not bragging rights in their cross-hairs. Extortion is sometimes the name of the game. If data can be held at ransom by thieves, depending on how sensitive the data is, they can demand a huge sum of money.
The ways that companies and individuals are affected by web application attacks are numerous. Imagine this “what if” situation. A large Fortune 500 company is attacked by an orchestrated attack and the credit card numbers are taken and held at ransom by an organized crime group. Word gets out and the Fortune 500 company under goes a huge investigation and security audit. The clients and customers of the company lose trust in the security of the company and start taking their business elsewhere. The company then starts losing revenue and the customers begin to find that their credit cards are being charged illegally. The credit card companies are involved and are losing money as well. Nobody is immune to these web application attacks, whether its large company or one individual.
As programmers design web applications to be more accessible and easy to use, often these features are targets for crime groups to attack. Programmers must protect their applications by following secure coding practices to filter out any attacks and create a safe place for their clients customers to do business.
One of the major ways hackers breach a web application are through SQL injection attacks. SQL injection attacks can be used to access sensitive data or do any number of destructive things to the data stored in the web application’s database. Cross-site scripting attacks are also prevalent. This attack occurs when malicious code is inserted and executed when a user loads an infected page. Denial of service attacks are also popular. This happens when the network hosting a web application is swamped with useless requests sent out by the criminals which creates so much traffic that the network or system crashes.
Its a wild world out there…
Beware! You Are Taking Identity Theft Security Risks On Your Pc
Malware identity theft is a problem for a lot of people in this world who use their computer. Maybe 90% of computer users have regular internet access. Their are also many jobs where it is a necessity. There are a myriad of causes that begin to slow down your computer or even cause it to begin spouting error messages at you, failing to open things you normally use and in some cases causing complete software/hardware failures.
In general accessing the internet is one of the most consistent causes as spyware/adware and malware sneaks onto your improperly protected pc. Another main culprit for your pc slowing down or having problems is the windows registry (a library of shared files for running multiple applications at the same time). The final main culprit is bad software such as free-wares. Most (but not all) freeware programs are free for a reason. It is not necessarily because they are poor programs.
I have used some outstanding freeware in the past, but they almost all contain some form of spyware/adware or even worse malware such as viruses. When you download freeware – even well known programs, you are taking a huge gamble. The problems may not even occur whilst you are using the program (aside from pop-up ad’s), but when you try to uninstall the software, it will often take out some important shared files from the registry because it has been designed poorly just to get the malware onto your pc.
A very common way you can tell if you have a potential malware on your pc is to look for that program in the windows control panel section. Go to add/remove programs – if the program isn’t there it is most likely malware. There are cases where it not, but it usually is. The last thing the program creator wants is for you to be able to easily uninstall their malware! Under these circumstances you will have to go into your program files, find the right folder and use the uninstaller supplied. Even with this method you cannot be sure that the uninstaller has removed everything, nor can you be sure that it hasn’t damaged important files.
MALWARE HELP.
The problem with malware is that it is extremely sophisticated and can “piggy-back” onto your computer just while you are viewing a web page that contains it. You must never underestimate how serious of a threat malware can be to your security, one of these programs could easily be logging you credit details or log-ins as you type them into websites. Identity theft and fraud are on a massive increase through the use of the internet. The biggest problem you’ll find when you do realise that you must have better protection against these attacks is; choosing the right programs to protect your privacy. There are many “fake” or “less than adequate” programs out there and it is very easy to get ripped off.