Threats To Privacy

The greatest threats to privacy today are the many types of hardware and software that take information from your computer system without your knowledge or consent. Hardware in the form of keyloggers (keystroke recorders). Software in the form of Viruses, Worms, Trojans, Cookies, Pests (Web Bugs), Adware, and Surveillance software.

The greatest threats to privacy today are the many types of hardware and software that take information from your computer system without your knowledge or consent. Hardware in the form of keyloggers (keystroke recorders). Software in the form of Viruses, Worms, Trojans, Cookies, Pests (Web Bugs), Adware, and Surveillance software.

Hardware keyloggers don't require any technical skill to install, and can be overlooked easily by even technically sophisticated people. The only prerequisite is that the culprit who installs it must have physical access to your computer. After that, installation usually takes less than 5 seconds. An installed keylogger will then capture every keystroke made using the keyboard and store it inside the device's memory for future retrieval. Some keyloggers have boasted up to a two million keystroke storage capacity, or about five years worth of typing for an average person. Keylogger hardware can usually be found plugged into the keyboard port in the back of your computer, with your keyboard then plugged into the other end of the keylogger. If you remove it, make sure your computer is turned off before you unplug it, or your motherboard may be damaged.

Software viruses are pieces of software that replicate themselves from one computer system to another. Any delivery system is utilized, although the most common form today is email attachments. The function of viruses is as varied as the virus software programmers that create them. Some only spread spam messages, while some hit on certain dates to perform mayhem, while others damage computer files and even destroy operating system installations. Privacy threats include sending using your email address as the sending address for spam sent to everyone on your contact list, for example. But identity theft can also occur if the viruses can find any of your financial information, or logins and passwords on your system which they will then send "home" to their hacker creators.

Worms are similar to viruses in that they move from system to system, but worms typically don't make multiple copies of themselves. Used primarily for mapping out networks and finding logins and passwords, these are primarily research tools for hackers. Although, there is nothing preventing a worm from doing anything that a virus can do once it has infiltrated a computer.

If you remember the story of the Trojan Horse where the Greek soldiers entered into the city Troy by hiding inside the Horse, then you should understand Trojans. Trojans are pieces of software that usually hide inside other software like games, greeting cards, self-executing videos or audios. Trojans are more of a delivery vehicle for viruses and worms. Trojans usually destroy themselves right after delivering their "package" which makes them even harder to detect. Privacy threats are even greater with Trojans because since you are tricked into installing them on your computer, that allows them to in essence bypass your firewall, anti-virus and other pest defenses.

Cookies are pieces of data, not software, that automatically and silently get stored on your computer by your web browser at the request of a web site that you visit. There are three primary types of Cookies. First, there is the Session Cookie, which is not usually a threat, and is only stored in memory on your computer while you are using your browser. As soon as you close your browser, the Session Cookie is removed from your computer. The second type is the Permanent Cookie which gets stored on your hard drive and is used typically to store Affiliate tracking codes, so that e-commerce web sites know what customer belongs to what affiliate. The third type is known as a third-party or Data-mining Cookie which is actually allowed due to a "bug" in the design of the cookie software inside browsers. In general, all cookies will only respond to one web site, and the assumption is that web sites will only reference themselves when setting cookies. Clever marketers discovered, however, that they could set cookies for sites other than the site delivering the cookies. Allowing them to create networks of web sites that could then track where a web browser had gone by programming their cookies to deliver their information to the marketer's "home" web site, usually in the middle of redirecting a web page. Privacy concerns don't usually involve loss of personal information this way, but are usually centered around building a "customer profile" by knowing what web sites you visit and how often, and what you buy. Marketers then make money by selling your associated email address or IP number to hackers or other unscrupulous marketers to deliver spam email or pop-ups to your computer.

Pests (also known as Web Bugs) are pieces of software that store themselves on your system typically for the purpose of tracking what you do on-line. Internet Explorer allows a type of software known as an "ActiveX Control" that can essentially run with Administrator rights on your computer and do almost anything. Delivered from web sites directly, these controls will typically ask you to allow them to run on your computer, and once you click the "Allow" button, you can only hope they do what they say they will do, such as just download or install some application that you are downloading off the Web. Many people are wary of these controls, and deactivate the default of allowing ActiveX controls to run by turning off scripting in Internet Explorer. They do this by setting their Internet Security setting from the default of "Medium" to "High" in Internet Explorer for all web sites in the "Internet Zone" that are not "Trusted Sites". Other browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and Konquerer (Linux) don't allow ActiveX controls and so don't have this problem. Privacy threats by ActiveX controls are almost open-ended since there is no limit to what they can do once they get on your computer. It's suggested that you don't click the "Allow" button in Internet Explorer to download ActiveX controls to your computer unless you really, really trust the installing web site.

Adware is software designed to show you advertisements on your computer. This can be legitimate, such as Eudora software's ad-supported free versions of their software. Instead of paying the shareware fee for the software, you simply have to put up with some ads shown inside their software. But there are also illegitimate types that try to "force" advertising on your computer in various ways. This is typically done by Internet Explorer browser helpers (toolbars), by deleting competitors' ads from web sites you visit, or by substituting ads originally on the web site page with "forced ads". This has primarily been a problem with Internet Explorer in the past, however, with all the new plug-ins and modules that other browsers now allow, it's really becoming more of a general problem. Concerns are mostly one of annoyance, and slowing down system performance. But your privacy has also been violated because you are now on some unknown marketer's targeted advertising list.

Surveillance software grew out of the software originally intended for parents to monitor their children's activities on the web. Obviously, this software had to be "stealthy" or the kids would disable it or uninstall it while using the computer. This led several "clever" people to realize you could use this software for monitoring anybody, not just children. It is now used by bosses, spouses, private investigators, identity thieves, and Ex's of all types to silently record everything you do on your computer. This can include recording keystrokes, web sites you visit, screen shots, applications you run, instant message chat monitors and much more. Easily this is becoming the greatest threat to privacy in existence. In some cases, such as when employers monitor their own employees using company equipment, it is totally legal. And although spying to some degree has always been done, now with surveillance software it costs next to nothing to do, and the software's ease of use can turn even an eight-year-old into a very sophisticated spy.

Fortunately there are defenses against all of these threats to your privacy. Here are some recommended steps you can take to protect yourself and your family. As with most solutions, there are free ones and those you need to pay for. You will need to decide for yourself which type you trust enough to use.

1. Get a firewall to make your computer "stealthy" or invisible to port scans on the Internet. Hackers find their victims on the Internet by "pinging" random IP addresses. Ordinarily when your computer sees a "ping request" it sends back a "ping response" announcing it's presence. There is no reason for your computer to need to do this. A firewall will stop this from happening, and will also close access to almost all of the 65,536 ports your computer has exposed to the Internet. Only those ports needed for email, web browsing, FTP, etc. should be left open and set to "outbound connections" only.

2. Get an Anti-virus software program that will not only scan your entire system, but will do so in real-time, so it can catch the viruses and worms as they are being downloaded via the web or in your email before they can do any damage.

3. Get an Adware cleaning program to remove any Data-mining cookies on your computer's hard drive, and remove any registry entries and files belonging to illegitimate Adware software.

4. Get a Spyware cleaning program to remove any Trojans, Pests (Web Bugs) and Surveillance software from your computer, ideally one that can run in real-time as well.

5. Get temporary file and usage tracks removal software to remove the data from your computer you didn't know was there that can be read by malicious software and sent "home" to it's maker. The truth is, as good as software solutions are, they are not perfect. Your best bet is to make sure the data you don't want stolen isn't on your computer in the first place. Use evidence removal software just before you shut you computer down at least on a daily basis.

Over 10 million people in the United States have already had their privacy violated and have had to live through the nightmare of identity theft. It can take years and a lot of work to recover your good credit and to prevent being sued by merchants that were not paid where your checks and credit card numbers were used fraudulently. The steps given above can go a long way to help prevent this from ever happening to you. Like the old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure.

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