Risks To Websites and Security Protection Mechanisms

1. Risks To Websites and Security Protection Mechanisms Presented By Wizard Web Design

2. Risks To Websites Presented By Wizard Web Design

3. Hacking Hacking is essentially when people crack the usernames and passwords on websites. There are two types of hacking FTP and User area hacking. FTP Involves hacking website setup. If you have the server username and password you can delete pages from the website. User area hacking involves hacking the username and password of secure areas on websites e.g. a online bank account. You can then find sensitive information. If you delete content the page will not work (FTP). If you hack a user area this doesn’t have an effect on performance but you will need to change your password and this takes time so your time on the internet is lengthened. Presented By Wizard Web Design

4. Pagejacking Pagejacking is simple terms is stealing content from a webpage. The whole purpose of pagejacking is to divert traffic from someone else’s to your own. This is done by copying source codes from websites and pasting them into your own. For example someone could search for a Amazon product but instead be diverted to someone else’s website because they have stolen the source code. This makes website lose traffic and therefore lose trade. This has a knock on effect meaning you could probably lose money and advertising. It is achieved by creating a rogue copy of a popular website which shows contents similar to the original to a web surfer, but redirects web surfers to unrelated or malicious websites. Presented By Wizard Web Design

5. Phishing Phishing is the process of trying to steal sensitive information from a website. It is common in rogue E-mails when you are asked to sign up for something and you inadvertently pass over sensitive information. The whole purpose of Phishing is to steal personal details from people. In addition to stealing personal and financial data, phishers can infect computers with viruses and convince people to participate unwittingly in money laundering. Most people associate phishing with e-mail messages that mimic banks, credit card companies or other business like Amazon and eBay. These messages look authentic and attempts to get victims to reveal their personal information. Presented By Wizard Web Design

6. Viruses Viruses are very common on computers and there are three mains types Adware, Spyware and Malware. Adware is a virus that makes an advert pop up every time you access a web page. It detects a web connection and makes an advert pop up. Spyware tries to spy on you to find personal information. Key loggers are used to sense what you are typing and to intercept personal information you are typing. Spyware can be used for legitimate reasons, for example ISP’s sometimes use spyware to track users internet habits. Malware is essentially malicious software that gets onto your computer and steals, hides and corrupts files. This is the biggest threat to computer and therefore internet performance because Malware can grind your computer to a halt. They try and fool people by making fake system virus scanners pop up that are designed to attack files. Adware and Spyware send and receive information from your internet connection so this limits your bandwidth. Presented By Wizard Web Design

7. Identity Theft Identity theft is when people steal your identity and use it for financial gain, by using your credit cards and banking system. For identity theft to work the thieves need your name, date of birth, card details, passport details and driving licence details. Without all these they cannot create a new identity and start stealing your money. When you log onto secure payment systems you can be vulnerable especially on mobile devices and tablets because they tend to have very low security measures installed on them because users don’t see a need for security on mobile devices. If successful identity thieves can steal all your money without you knowing or realising how they did it. Presented By Wizard Web Design

8. Security Protection Mechanisms Presented By Wizard Web Design

9. Firewalls Firewalls are designed to stop unwanted and unneeded software infiltrating your computer. It has rules to detect things you don’t need e.g. viruses. Firewalls are a kind of security checkpoint on your computer. One of the problems with Firewalls is that they can block seemingly harmless data and because of this you may need to change the settings and this is time consuming. Firewalls do slow down your computer slightly because they have to check all content trying to access your computer. Firewalls can be in the form of software installed on the computer or they can be installed in hardware items such as routers which try and block harmful content before it reaches your computer. Presented By Wizard Web Design

10. Secure Socket Layers (SSL) When you transmit data on a website this is done using a system of layers. These layers can be intercepted and used for malicious purposes. SSL’s create a secure connection between two locations and this is encrypted and can only be decrypted by the person you are sending the data to at the other end. With this is place no one can track your transmissions e.g. online banking. SSL’s take a few seconds to load but once loaded they do not affect computer performance. Presented By Wizard Web Design

11. Digital Certificate Digital certificates establish that what you are sending is secure so because of this they are mostly used on E-mails. Your E-mail system connects a digital certificate to what you are sending. When you send the E-mail the receiver cannot read it unless they have the correct encryption key from the digital certificate. Because you have to get a Digital Certificate E-mails can be slowed down slightly. E-mails are slowed down because they have to fetch and decrypt the digital certificate. They can now be used on websites and you get a message if a website doesn’t have a Digital Certificate, so you know it may not be a secure website. Presented By Wizard Web Design

12. Use of Passwords Password are used to secure personal information on a website, meaning that only the person who knows the password can access the information. Passwords are common in lots of websites to secure users personal information. Websites that use passwords can be slower than other websites because they have to store all the passwords on a database that is linked to the websites. This is so websites can verify that you have typed in the correct password. Passwords need to be strong to be secure. 12345 is an example of an extremely weak password because it is easy to guess. Presented By Wizard Web Design

13. Legal Considerations Legal considerations are imposed upon you when you use a computer. They don’t really affect performance. If you store information you have to adhere to data protection act. If you set up an online survey for example you have to ask for relevant information to the survey. There are other types of legal consideration such as • Privacy and electronic communication regulations • Computer Misuse Act Setting up these security measures on a computer slows things down. Presented By Wizard Web Design