How can you be attacked?

Oddly enough, there are some people who like to spend their day trying to find other people's computers that are open to them and without proper safeguards any computer is wide open. The intruder will gain access to all the data stored on your computer and can delete, copy or edit any file you have. Once access is gained, the intruder can run various applications on your computer and even attack other computers making it look like you were the attacker.

There are several ways your computer can be made vulnerable:

• Inviting you to download or sending you a program that looks helpful but is a Trojan horse
• Accessing your pc via known security holes in the software you use (your Web browser or Internet Pager for examples)
• Attacking with specially created harmful data streams designed to create malfunctions in your system
• Using weaknesses in your Operating System configuration to access your computer (NetBios settings)

An examination of each of type of attack follows. You can learn how to protect your computer against successful attacks in How To Protect Your Computer From Attacks.

Attacks Utilizing a Trojan Horse
A Trojan horse, like the Greek "gift" to Troy, looks like a useful and innocent program but actually contains a means of attacking your system. A Trojan allows an attacker to perform almost the same actions on an infected computer as does its owner: copy, view and delete information from the hard drive, run applications, change configuration settings, control the infected computer's hardware and much more. Typically Trojan horses are distributed over the Internet as small utility programs, screen-savers, wallpaper for desktops, etc. When a cracker gains access to a system, all manner of maliciousness is possible. For more info see What is a Trojan Horse's Trapdoor?

Attacks Via Internet Applications
Some Internet applications, such as browsers and Internet pagers, have security holes that can be taken advantage of by attackers to access data stored on your hard drive. Depending on your application configurations, your computer can distribute confidential information about your system and your Internet operations (mostly applies to Web browsers).

Attacks Using Specially Created Harmful Data Streams
There is software around that attackers use to send harmful data streams designed to disrupt your system and impair its efficiency on the Internet. A computer receiving this data through its different ports might lose control and hang (freeze up). Beyond the bother of having to reboot your computer, current downloads are lost, phone calls are interrupted and so on.

Attacks Using Weaknesses in Your O/S SettingsAttackers can take advantage of free and open access made available by how your Operation System is configured. For example, if your computer uses Microsoft Windows its NetBios settings can be set so your files are made available to attackers.