How safe is our data?

Nowadays, we as internet users used to online everyday and expose more of our personal information on social networking Web sites and office workers upload more sensitive data to online software programs. However, there are vast cyber attacks which fall under several general categories: accidental actions and malicious attacks-computer viruses, denial of service attacks and distributed denial of service attacks. A third area of cyber vulnerability, online fraud, comprises issues such as identity theft and data theft.

Computer hackers are employing increasingly sophisticated methods to pry that information loose. In many cases, they're devising small attacks that can fly under the radar of traditional security software, while exploiting the trust users place in popular business and consumer Web sites.

A case from Florida: In January 2001, the entire municipality of Largo lost e-mail service for over a week when an unknown company based in Spain compromised its identity. The company hacked into the city’s e-mail relay system to steal the Largo.com identity. Soon enough, e-mail spam from Largo.com addresses flooded the net, and many Internet Service Providers blacklisted all incoming and outgoing electronic messages from the city.

Social networking sites (MySpace and Facebook) are favorite targets, as a successful compromise gives attackers access to a large number of people who are likely to trust the sites. These sites often expose confidential user information that can then be used in attempts to conduct identity theft or online fraud. Moreover, our newest technical fascinations—iPhones, Internet calling systems, and smart phones—all might present tempting targets in 2008.

So ladies and gentlemem, please be careful yo~

Table 1. Site-specific Vulnerabilities. Source: Symantec Corporation
During the last six months of 2007, 11,253 site-specific cross-site scripting vulnerabilities were documented, compared to 6,961 between February and June in the first half of the year.