Did you buy anything online recently? Use an ATM machine? If
so, whether you know it or not, you used cryptography. Cryptography (in the
guise of the SSL protocol) protects your credit card information as
it whizzes across the Internet, and ensures that others can't withdraw money
from your account.
Our computers help us stay connected to the modern world. We
use them for banking and bill paying, shopping, connecting with our friends and
family through email and social networking sites, surfing the internet, and so
much more. We rely so heavily on our computers to provide these services that
we sometimes overlook their security. Because our computers have such critical
roles in our lives and we trust them with so much personal information, it’s
important to improve their security so we can continue to rely on them and keep
our information safe.
Attackers can infect your computer with malicious software,
or malware, in many different ways. They can take advantage of unsafe user
practices and flaws in your computer’s programs (flaws including
vulnerabilities and unsecured services and features) and use social engineering
(in which an attacker convinces someone to perform an action such as opening a
malicious email attachment or following a malicious link). Once your computer
is infected, intruders can use the malware to access your computer without your
knowledge to perform unwanted actions. They can steal your personal
information, change computer configurations, cause your computer to perform
unreliably, and install even more malware they can use to leverage attacks or
spread malware to others.
Cryptography refers to encryption, where the ordinary
message is process based on some algorithm into unintelligible text called as
cipher text. The main purpose of encryption here is to provide confidentiality,
integrity, non-repudiation and authentication.
Following practice will make you to keep your computer
secure
·
Connect to secure network
·
Enable and configure firewall
·
Install Antivirus
·
Remove unnecessary software
·
Operate under the least privilege
·
Apply software update
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