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2011-20122012Internet SafetyWhat is Internet Safety?Internet safety or online safety concerns the security of people and their information when usingthe Internet. Today, people have expressed concerns over their children‘s safety when using theInternet and accessing different web pages that are available to them. The most known crimesthat can be committed through the Internet are identity theft and cyber bullying. Cyber bullyingis considered to be the plaque among young people today, because they take the opportunity todegrade others by creating groups in the various social networks like Facebook that they belongto in order to make fun of others.How are people attacked?The most common way that people are attacked is through Phishing. Emails are sent from unknownsenders who pretend to be representatives from trustworthy companies in an attempt toacquire different personal information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details.Through these emails, the senders might tell you that you have won something from a specificcompany and your personal data are required or that there is an outstanding issue with yourbank and you are asked to send some credit card details etc.Some other common ways of Internet attacks are Pharming and Spyware. Pharming is a commonIT terminology and is used when a hacker redirects Internet traffic i.e. when a user is tryingto access a trustworthy site such as Paypal, and instead of going directly to the Paypal site, theuser has been re-directed to the fake website without even realising it. A Spyware is a softwarethat is installed to your pc, usually through different untrustworthy sites, with the main purposeof collecting personal information, without the user‘s permissionMalicious programs are also used in order to cause problems to your pc and steal your information.These programs are the common known computer viruses, worms and Trojan Horses Viruses.When these programs attack and remain attached to your pc, they can spread to all yourpc files and without even knowing it, you can be the sender of a malicious program to yourfriends and to the Web.How can you keep your pc safe?A common way of preventing unauthorized access to your computer is to always have your pc‘sFirewall on. It can also stop the downloading and installation of unauthorized software and ensurethe protection of the data that the user will send and receive through the Internet.Also, another way of keeping your pc protected is the use of anti-virus and anti-spyware that areapplications that detect and, most of the times, remove viruses from a computer such as NOD32,AVG etc.Tiwana Karanjit Singh 6A73