- #Best ways to protect your computer from viruses and hackers install
- #Best ways to protect your computer from viruses and hackers software
This is why banks brought in one-time passwords or codes," he says. Initially, man-in-the-middle attacks were passwords used in authentication – the criminal would wait until you had finished to start using the credentials they'd just gathered. "Everything you then do on your compromised laptop is subverted through a hacking site which means when you with your bank, you are going through a man in the middle.
#Best ways to protect your computer from viruses and hackers install
Typically, these so-called "man-in-the-middle" attacks install colourfully named Trojans (pieces of malware, essentially) such as Zeus, SpyEye or Citadel on computers, which have the effect of compromising, for example, online banking transactions. (A recent example of the latter was malware disguised as a security warning from Microsoft's digital crimes unit.) "We have a level of trust in certain organisations and criminals exploit that trust," says Sidaway. Phishing emails purporting to be from friends, often reflecting our interests – perhaps gleaned from social media sites – or from trusted organisations such as your bank or HM Revenue & Customs encourage us to click on infected links or attachments containing malware.
#Best ways to protect your computer from viruses and hackers software
The majority (£21bn) is committed against businesses, which face high levels of intellectual property theft and industrial espionage.Įnabled by the sharing culture on social media – and with ever more sophisticated malicious software known as malware at their disposal – cybercriminals have become far more adept at crafting attacks and targeting individuals and organisations. The government estimates that the total cost of cybercrime in the UK is £27bn a year.
So what are they after, I ask? "We are seeing a wide variety of attacks – everything from opportunists trying to extract passwords through phishing to highly organised crime units targeting businesses and government systems in an effort to steal intellectual property and information related to critical infrastructure."