CRI听力:PC Security

In the wake of the recent hacks which have hit major networks in the United States, computer experts are now warning individuals to arm their computers with updated anti-virus software.

CRI's John Artman has more.

It used to be that we only had to worry about viruses and malware destroying our computer.

But more and more, black hat programmers want to keep our machines intact so they can use it for various nefarious purposes.

Kevin Johnson, a security consultant for SANS Institute and Secure Ideas, says that these days hackers want your PC for its information and also to use it as a platform to attack other computers.

"So if I want to attack you, I can take over those five computers from people who don't really know what's going on and then attack your organization. If you were to track it back it would look like those five people did the attack."

David Freer, Vice president of Norton Consumer Business for Asia Pacific and Japan, says that where it used to be for fame or notoriety, cybercriminals these days want money and to do that they target uNPRotected, individual consumers.

"It used to be for fame. How many machines can I bring down? Its now for fortune. And really, cybercriminals are exactly that. They're criminals looking to make money. Over 60, 70% of attacks we see are purely targeted at making money. We also see that of all the attacks that go out, over 90% are targeted at consumers."

And, according to him, they don't even need to use the information directly to make money.

They can aggregate thousands, if not millions, of people's data and sell it.

"They don't even need to utilize your personal information to make money out of it. There'll be a guy who collects that data and then sells it on to someone who may want to empty it. And someone will be making money selling this range of bank account details, email accounts, or other things. So, you may never be compromised, but your identity is out there, being sold between criminals."

what can you do about it?

Kevin Johnson says that the first step is to install antivirus software.

"I think there are bare minimums of what you have on your machine. You must be this tall to ride this ride. If you're not running some type of anti-malware software, then you're not tall enough to ride the internet. Saying that, I have to say that their is no fail-safe. Just because you're running anti-virus doesn't mean you can click whatever you want. You've just raised the bar for the attacker."

Jay Herbison, CEO of Priveazy, agrees and says that you have to take it a step further by continually educating yourself.

"Just installing anti-virus or security suite isn't going to keep you safe. You have to protect yourself from identity theft, protect your financial accounts, your online reputation, and just overall the general privacy of your information. It really requires that you make good decisions on a day to day basis and educate yourself about what's going on out there."

For CRI, I'm John Artman.