You computer can be damaged any number of ways, from power surges, water damage, heat or simply misuse. Some people get angry and punch them usually causing problems with the motherboard and running hard drives and data.
But the way most peoples computer gave something go wrong with them is they have downloaded something which hurts their computer or laptop, or they have come under attack.
If your computer was not attached to a network or any other computers, including the internet you probably wouldn’t have too many problems with your computer.
So lets discuss different kinds of attacks what they mean and how they affect you.
DDOS – Distributed Denial of Services
DDOS attacks usually don’t target a persons computer, more so a service people use, such as a website etc.
Over the years criminals have got smarter though and have included you in serving their objectives. Ut use to be called Denial of Service attacks a lot of us have unfortunately been unknowingly helping them by being infected with their software which unknowingly makes your computer help them, thence the Distributed was added.
Eavesdropping
Eavesdropping can come in two forms.
Spyware – This is where you have some how downloaded some sort of software unknowingly which sits in your computer and spys on what you are doing.
They do this to gain access to important information such as account details and banking passwords etc.
Packet Sniffing – This is when you are on a network or somewhere insecure and other people on the network can see what you are doing, what sites you are accessing and basically your network traffic.
You can make sure this does not happen by only accessing websites which have “https” in the name or you can use a service like a paid V.P.N. – Virtual Private Network, to keep your network traffic hidden.
Man-in-the-middle attack
A man in the middle attack is a little like Eavesdropping in where you think you are communicating with the intended recipient, whether its a person or computer and the “main-in-the-middle” is either receiving the communications and forwarding them on or pretending to be your target.
An example of man in the middle is a fake website which resembles one you have used with a username and password before.
You assume its your website and put your usernamr and password in, in turn giving your credentials to the criminals.
