Oct. 23, 2014

By Rumasa Noor

Cyber security is an ever-growing issue in modern day and age. People are at more risk on the Internet than they realize. In order to spread awareness about these risks, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has designated October 2014 as the 11th National Cyber Security month in alliance with the National Cyber Security Alliance and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, according to DHS.
There are many different ways through which a person’s security can be compromised.
One of the ways people get hacked is if they get a virus on their computer.
Many times these viruses have what’s called a keylogger, which records everything individuals type on their computers. So if someone is sending an email or doing an online banking activity, it will capture that information, UW-Whitewater professor Alana Platt said.
The compromise on one’s privacy is not confined to getting a virus; there are several other ways through which people intentionally or unintentionally give away their personal information.
“There’s a lot that businesses like Facebook or even the government organizations like the National Security, they basically gather people’s data that people are sharing with them willingly or unwillingly and the amount of things you can figure out from this data is absolutely crazy,” Platt said. “It’s not like, if Facebook figured something out about you, it’s not like it’s going to break you computer, but once the information is out there, you can’t really pull it back in.”
Platt said Target, through its data mining program, was able to figure out which of its customers are pregnant.
The threat of being hacked online is bigger than having one’s computer hacked.
“Computer hacking is expected mostly in large organizations rather than regular people,” Platt said.
Another way people give away their consent without realizing it is through agreeing on the privacy agreements on a number of websites including Facebook, Twitter etc. People accept the agreements without reading them properly, which gives websites a way to use their information, said senior Jared Gruenwald.
Gruenwald started an informational site, yesidisagree.com, that explains the lengthy privacy statements of popular sites such as Facebook and Twitter and explains those agreements in a few short paragraphs.
“Even if you go to a website that says they aren’t going to use your data, there will be people on that website that will be looking for your information, so it doesn’t really matter what the website is or what you are using it for, any information that’s out there can be used,” Gruenwald said.
Apple typically claims that there are no known viruses for Macs, but Platt said even though Macs are more secure devices, they are not immune to certain viruses, despite their claim.
“You have to be really careful of what you do on a Mac,” Platt said. “You have to be mindful of where you are going, what you are downloading or what you are opening.”