With the advancement we have made in technology, humans have definitely made great strides when it comes to making their lives easier. However, as it is common with most things, every invention has good and bad use. If it is left with the good guys, an invention can be used to do good things, but when it comes in the hand of dangerous people, the advantages are greatly overshadowed by the number of ways it can be used to cause havoc. The internet is also one of those inventions as hackers of today’s world have found numerous ways to cheat the system and extort people and businesses for money. To fight the good fight against cyber hacking, here are three most common viruses hackers use to get into a computer so that you can protect yourself against them.
Trojan Horse
The feeding ground for every virus is the internet itself. As everyone is connected to each other through the internet, it is very easy for hackers to infect computer systems. Trojans are one of the oldest and most popular virus types used by hackers. A Trojan program is any program that pretends to be something other than what it really is. For example, you just downloaded an mp3 song from some website, thinking it was your favorite song. But that downloader downloads another program that infects your system without you even knowing it. Once the infection is completed, the Trojan horse creates a backdoor in your system and gains administrative rights. It enables hackers to monitor your system from anywhere and take control of your computer without your knowledge.
Ransomware
One of the most common viruses that hackers use to infect business organizations is ransomware. It is a type of malicious software that is used to block access to a computer until a certain amount of money is paid to the hacker. Most hackers deliver ransomware to the host computer in the form of an email with an attachment or other social engineering tricks. Hackers trick you into believing that the email is genuine, and when you download the attachment, your computer is infected, and you lose control of your files. The hacker then demands a ransom in the form of bitcoin payments, and if you don’t comply with his needs, you simply lose access to your files. To learn more about ransomware and how to tackle it, you can browse over to the highlighted text.
Botnets
Botnets are a number of computers that are connected through the internet and controlled by someone on the outside, like a hacker. Once your computer has become a botnet, it might be your property, but you will no longer be the only one using it. When the botnet’s owner is in control of your computer, he can use your machine’s computing power to perform DDoS attacks, send spam emails, generate fake internet traffic, and target ads specifically at you using your own browser. In summary, a botnet hijacks a PC and uses it to carry out little tasks without the user even knowing.
Related Posts
