What is hacking?
The act of gaining illegal access to a computer system
List 3 ways you can prevent hacking
- Anti-hacking software
- Use of strong/long passwords
- Firewalls
How do firewalls work?
- Monitors traffic
- Blocks suspicious traffic
- Blocks access to sketchy websites
How does spyware work?
- User clicks on a link from an email or website
- When clicked spyware is downloaded
- Monitors users activity and relays it back hacker
- Keypresses can be analyzed to find passwords
- Common key logs allow passwords to be found
List 2 ways you can prevent spyware
- Anti-spyware software
- Use an on-screen keyboard
What is a virus?
- Program that replicates itself
- Deletes or corrupts files
List ways you can secure your device from a virus
- Anti-virus software
- Anti-malware
- Firewall
- Proxy server
How does a proxy server work?
- Keeps user IP address secret
- Prevents direct access to a webserver
- Filters traffic
- Speeds up traffic using CACHE
- Blocks selected IP addresses
- Helps prevent hacking of a webserver
What is phishing?
- Creator sends out a legitimate looking email
- As soon as the user clicks on it, the user is sent to a fake website
How do you avoid phishing?
- Don’t click on unknown emails
What is pharming?
- Malicious code installed in computer
- Redirects user to fake website
How do you avoid pharming?
- Anti-spyware
- Check the URL is as expected
How does encryption work on text?
- Before encryption it is plain text
- Text encrypted using an algorithm
- Text encrypted using a key
- Encrypted text called cypher text
- Key transmitted separately from text
- Key used to decrypt the cypher text
What is SSL?
- Secure sockets layer
- Allows data to be sent and received securely over the internet
How does SSL work?
- Uses digital certificates - contains public key
- Server sends SSL to browser/client
- Client and server agree on encryption method to use
- Browser checks authenticity of certificate
- The transaction will begin
What is a benefit of using SSL?
- Data is encrypted
How does an anti-virus software work?
- Compares the virus signature to a database of known viruses
How does a biometric device work?
- Scans finger with sensor
- Finger print converted from analogue to digital by ADC
- Data interpreted by microprocessor
- Data compared to stored data
