The world is changing in a rapid way becoming more dangerous where absolute security is very vital. I am not talking about physical, here we are talking virtual security as in IT security. Every minute a PC is being hacked, it’s very easy for a system to be hacked as the knowledge spread throughout the internet. It’s very common now days for kids under as 12 years old to do this type of work mostly these days they’re well verse with technology. And the most of the hacking done by people from developing region of the world for financial gain.  We can protect ourselves by being wary. We can’t be 100 % protected but we can build a very good defense.

Top ten  computer security threats

1. Trojan – Trojan is one of the most complicated threats among all. Most of the popular banking threats come from the Trojan family such as Zeus and SpyEye. It has the ability to hide itself from antivirus detection and steal important banking data to compromise your bank account. If the Trojan is really powerful, it can take over your entire security system as well. As a result, a Trojan can cause many types of damage starting from your own computer to your online account.
2. Virus – Looking at the technology 10 years back, Virus is something really popular. It is a malicious program where it replicates itself and aim to only destroy a computer. The ultimate goal of a virus is to ensure that the victim’s computer will never be able to operate properly or even at all. It is not so popular today because Malware today is designed to earn money over destruction. As a result, Virus is only available for people who want to use it for some sort of revenge purpose.
3. Worms – One of the most harmless threats where it is program designed only to spread. It does not alter your system to cause you to have a nightmare with your computer, but it can spread from one computer to another computer within a network or even the internet. The computer security risk here is, it will use up your computer hard disk space due to the replication and took up most of your bandwidth due to the spread.
4. Spyware – Is a Malware which is designed to spy on the victim’s computer. If you are infected with it, probably your daily activity or certain activity will be spied by the spyware and it will find itself a way to contact the host of this malware. Mostly, the use of this spyware is to know what your daily activity is so that the attacker can make use of your information. Such as if you browse on sex toys for a week every day, the attacker will try to come out with a sex toy scam to cheat on your money.
5. Scareware – Scareware is something that plant into your system and immediately inform you that you have hundreds of infections which you don’t have. The idea here is to trick you into purchasing a bogus anti-malware where it claims to remove those threats. It is all about cheating your money but the approach is a little different here because it scares you so that you will buy.
6. Keylogger – Something that keeps a record of every keystroke you made on your keyboard. Keylogger is a very powerful threat to steal people’s login credential such as username and password. It is also usually a sub-function of a powerful Trojan.
7. Adware – Is a form of threat where your computer will start popping out a lot of advertisement. It can be from non-adult materials to adult materials because any ads will make the host some money. It is not really harmful threat but can be pretty annoying.
8. Botnet. Botnet is something which is installed by a BotMaster to take control of all the computer bots via the Botnet infection. It mostly infects through drive-by downloads or even Trojan infection. The result of this threat is the victim’s computer, which is the bot will be used for a large scale attack like DDoS.
9. Phishing. A fake website which is designed to look almost like the actual website is a form of phishing attack. The idea of this attack is to trick the user into entering their username and password into the fake login form which serves the purpose of stealing the identity of the victim. Every form sent out from the phishing site will not go to the actual server, but the attacker controlled server.
10. Virus Document. Virus today can be spread through document file as well especially PDF documents. Last time, people will only advice you not to simply execute an EXE file but in today’s world with today’s technology, document file should also be avoided. It is best if you use an online virus scanner to scan first before opening any single file which you feel it is suspicious.

Steps to Protect Your PC from Hackers and Viruses 

The first thing first we need to install some type of Virus protection, if we go the free route can install a software called Avira (https://www.avira.com/). Most definitely if you have windows 7, 8, 10 you will have windows defender which is very sufficient. When browsing for website be very careful you might have installed malware accidentally or opened an email attachment. Too remove malware we must install a software called Malwarebytes (https://www.malwarebytes.com/).

Basics steps to protect yourself from viruses and malware

• Keep your software up to date
• Don’t click on links within emails
• Use free antivirus software
• Back up your computer
• Use a strong password
• Use a firewall
• Minimize downloads
• Use a pop-up blocker

Source  - UMA (IT Engineer) and www.itscolumn.com