ch 1 lesson 5

Private Information

On a personal level, you have private information that should not be shared with anyone else.

Identity Theft

A criminal that gains access or control of your computer can steal all of this personal information. With the right data, usernames, and passwords, a criminal can pretend to be you - this is identity theft.

Sensitive Data

Employees often need to work with sensitive data that belong to customers such as credit card numbers.

Confidential Information

Similarly, a business might create confidential information internally. New product plans, marketing strategies, customer lists, competitive analysis, and other important business information should be kept securely within the company and not leaked outsi

Security Risks

Each of the security risks described below can result in private information being lost or used incorrectly.

Stolen Data

Private information can be stolen from your home computer or business office. Hackers that gain control of your computer, network, or applications can access data they find stored in those locations.

Intercepted Data

Private information that is sent between locations can be intercepted by someone that is monitoring the communications. For example, if you enter a username and a password in a website, those things must go from your computer across the Internet to the we

Infected Applications

Applications running on your computer might become infected with viruses or other malware. The applications can then become unstable, quit working completely, corrupt your data, or send private data out to others.

Personal Strategies #1

As an Internet user, you are mostly responsible for your own security! Ethical online sites will usually do a good job protecting your personal and private information. However, it's hard to tell the difference between a safe website and one that will not

Personal Strategies #2

Avoid giving out personal information such as your name, address, phone number, age, credit card numbers, or other financial accounts unless you are working directly with a well-known bank, retailer, or other legitimate website.

Personal Strategies #3

Never share your private login to a service with someone else. Once your login name and password is shared, many other people can access that service just as you would.

Personal Strategies #4

Use a strong password that is hard for others to guess, but easy for you to remember. Use a combination of letters, numbers, and other special characters and avoid easily guessed passwords involving your name or other common words.

Personal Strategies #5

Avoid clicking on unknown links. If you receive an email claiming that you have won a free prize, carefully examine the URL underlying any link before clicking! Hyperlinks can be made to take you somewhere completely different than the descriptive text.

Personal Strategies #6

Criminals can set up fake websites that look exactly like the login page to your banking website or other sensitive areas. Ensure that the URL you are visiting truly belongs to the institution and not a similarly-named knock-off site.

Confidentiality

Confidentiality is also often referred to as data privacy.

Integrity

Integrity involves maintaining the consistency, accuracy, and trustworthiness of your data. Data must not be changed in transit, and steps must be taken to ensure that data cannot be altered by unauthorized people.

Availability

Availability means that you can get to the information you need at all times.

Backup Plan

As part of your security strategy, you should plan how to recover from a computer disaster or emergency. What happens if your computer is infected with a virus? How do you recover lost data if your hard drive crashes? If you ask these questions after losi

U.S. Copyright Act

The U.S. Copyright Act gives computer programs the same copyright status as literary works.

Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) was enacted in 1986 to address rising problems with computer hacking.

HIPPA

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) is a law that protects patients in hospitals and doctor's offices.

COPPA

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) was created to protect children on the Internet.

ECPA

Recently, privacy issues have come under attack from yet another source: your government! The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) was enacted to include electronic data in the list of things that the government is forbidden to intercept through w

GLBA

Banks and credit unions hold the keys to our personal finances. In order to force these companies to take stronger precautions with their client data, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) was passed.

Virus

Computer viruses are programs that are designed to damage your computer or allow a remote user to control your system.

Malware

Other kinds of malware programs might change the behavior of your computer to show you unwanted advertising, track your online activity, or steal your personal information.

Quarantine

Most anti-virus software will quarantine suspicious files automatically.

System Scan

To do this, you will often need to perform a system scan, where every file on your computer is checked by the anti-virus software.