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Computer Security
Computer security is the prevention/detection of, and response to, any unauthorized actions by users of a computer system. Questions about security practices and principles belong here.
1,022 Questions
Which is more secure Windows 98 or Windows XP?
Windows XP. Windows 98 never had a secure design to begin with, and it has received no security updates since 2006. Windows XP is still receiving security updates, and will continue to do so until 2014.
What technology allows a user to securely access a company LAN across a public network?
VPN (Virtual Private Network)
How do you get a password out of your computer you forgot it and cannot open it help?
Are you saying you set a password in the computer bios that requires you to enter that before the computer fully turns on?
If so, then you're kinda screwed. I don't know of any way to by-pass that.
If you're saying you forgot the password to the user to log-in to the computer, you can make a password reset disc and reset the password.
How can password help in data security?
If it is a good password, then it can help a great deal. Depending on the length and complexity of the password, it can take an attacker months, if not years on a super computer to crack a challenging password. There is no such thing as a completely secure system, but having a good password can certainly stall an attack for some time.
What does a all in one computer security system protect against?
Answer: To answer this question properly, we have to look at the evolution of security threats as well as the evolution of system security software. The first computer virus, known as the Creeper virus, was an experimental self-replicating program written by Bob Thomas at BBN in 1971. Creeper infected DEC PDP-10 computers running the TENEX operating system. Creeper gained access via the ARPANET (see note below) and copied itself to a remote system where the message, "I'm the creeper, catch me if you can!" was displayed. Note: APRA (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) was created by the United States Department of Defense during the Cold War and was the world's first operational packet switching network, and the predecessor of today's global Internet. While hard to believe, it was only in 1991 that the World-Wide Web was introduced. It had been developed by Tim Berners-Lee, with assistance from Robert Caillau (while both were working at CERN). But as far back as 1971, Bob Thomas had created the first virus which was basically a harmless and experimental self-replicating program. To make a long story short, the details of the experiment eventually leaked out and its concept was plagiarized and honed by computer gurus albeit; the global Internet was still some years away. By the time that the global Internet was finally introduced in 1991, groups of computer pranksters slowly began to infest the Internet with basically harmless viruses. However, towards the late 90's, computer viruses had evolved to a level whereby they were actually causing file damage to infected PCs. While this claim cannot be fully substantiated, it is believed that Message Labs, now part of Symantec, introduced the first commercially available anti-virus program in 1999 and hence, the first generationcomputer security threat system was born. Over the next two years, computer pranksters had developed a computer security threat that in many ways, was significantly more serious than the virus. This new threat is currently known as Malware or Spyware. Then companies, such as Symantec and Webroot, to name a few, introduced anti-spyware software. For an average PC to be protected, the PC's owner had to have both an anti-virus & anti-spyware program to ensure adequate security threat protection. However, it soon became apparent that having an anti-virus program running concurrently with an anti-spyware program consumed so much system overhead, that it drastically reduced the performance and stability of one's PC. To address this issue, developers of computer security threat systems then combined both functions into one software package giving birth to a second generation computer security threat system. While still demanding on system overhead, it was tolerable. At around the same time, a new security threat emerged which today, is known as computer hacking. Although Microsoft PC's had a built-in firewall, hackers were able to get around it resulting in 3rd party companies, such as Symantec and Webroot, to develop their own firewalls. Despite the best efforts of Security threat protection systems and improved 3rd party firewalls, it seemed as if the hackers were always one step ahead. This situation now led to a third generation computer security threat system that amongst other things, was an "all-in-one" security system. Now, I can properly answer the question: How do computers benefit from having all-in-one security system installed The benefits of having an "all-in-one" security system include: 1. Improved system performance: Rather than having a mishmash of anti-virus; anti-spyware and firewall components thrown together, software developers decided to completely redesign security threat software from the bottom up. This redesign in tandem with more efficient programming tools produced security threat software that was lean & mean on system overhead. Gone were the days when running a security threat program virtually consumed 50% to 60% of a PC's resources. 2. Sophisticated threat detection: New methods of detecting viruses and spyware were introduced such as heuristic analysis, which is an expert based analysis that determines the susceptibility of a system towards a particular threat/risk by using various decision rules and/or weighing methods. The logic here is simple: If a particular string of programmed code (on one's PC) has many of the attributes of a known virus or spyware; then in all probability it is. Other sophisticated detection methods may include: (a) AntiRootkit; (b) AntiPhishing; (c) EmailScanner and (d) AntiBot technologies. 3. Real-time detection:Previous generations of security threat systems were reactive in the sense that they were designed to detect viruses and spyware that had already infiltrated one's PC. On the other hand, most quality security threat systems have been designed to proactively intercept viruses and spyware before they actually infiltrate one's PC. 4. Firewall protection: New generation security threat systems generally provide increased firewall protection by employing (a) 2-way Personal Firewall; (b) Safe Wi-Fi and VPN connections and (c) advanced Intrusion Prevention technologies. In conclusion, most "all-in-one" security systems benefit one's PC through improved PC performance and stability in addition to proactively intercepting known threats and suspected threats before they can infiltrate your PC. Improved firewall techniques significantly reduce the risk of hacker intrusion. I am a recently retired computer engineer and have personally tested several categories of software including Security Threat suites. There are two that I have had excellent results with namely, Avira AntiVir Premium and Kaspersky Internet Security 2009. Both can be downloaded on a 30-day trial basis.
What are the differences between conventional and public key algorithms?
In cryptography, public key algorithms require two keys, one secret and one public. The public key is used in the encryption function, while the secret key is used in decryption . Conventional, or symmetric algorithms use a single key for both purposes.
What are the advantages to using long passwords?
Most thiefs use a program which tries all the common words to steal your password. A long password which contains numbers in it is not common, and is difficult to duplicate with such programs. Any password with more than seven letter-number combination, foreign words, and scrambled words are much more difficult than the standard six letter words.
How could one describe computer security?
Computer security basically refers to the preventive and resistive measures taken to protect information, ensure integrity of the system and to prevent unauthorized access to information or computing resources.
Computer security is required to protect hardware, software, sensitive information and it is enforced using software solutions (antivirus, firewall, encryption, digital certificates, authentication and authorization protocols etc) or hardware solutions (firewall, antivirus, biometrics etc).
Along with hardware and software security solutions, formulating and enforcing strict policies and educating about threats are very important for computer security.
SQL was originally invented by IBM researchers in the 1970s shortly after Dr. E. F. Codd first invented the concept of a relational database.Don Chamberlin, invented SQL together with Ray Boyce, and Jim Melton, the current editor of SQL.
What is the most commonly used password?
most people use their last names, pets, favorite food, etc. but it is not reccommended to do this because its easier for people to get in your computer and access your files.
There aren't really different types of CPU, but there are some major differences between CPUS. Like Bus Sizes - we have 32 & 64 bits. Some support SSE, SSE2 and SSE3. But there are different processor architectures which you are probably talking about. There are SPARC, IA64, X86, X64, IBM Cell and more.
I believe the 3 types of CPUs being requested are:
CISC: Complex Instruction Set Computers
RISC: Reduced instruction Set Computers
MISC: Minimal Instruction Set Computers
Difference between public and private key?
Examples of a private organisation: McDonalds, Topshop, The Trafford Centre.
It is an organisation that is owned privatly by someone and who has to sell a product or provide a service to make their money.
Examples of a public organisation: The police, The Fire service.
It is an organisation owned by the government to help the public, it is not owned privately.
What does it mean to hack an account?
To hack an account means to successfully gain unauthorized access to it.
Internet Filtering Software - Does It Really Work?In recent years as the Internet has grownas a medium for entertainment, online pornography and related pornographic materials has exploded.
Understandably, parents are in a bit of a sticky dilemma. They want their children to reap the benefits all of the vast amounts of educational and experiential material found on the Internet, but on the other hand they know that they need to shield them from unsavory, undesirable and pornographic material
As a result, parents have turned to various types of parental control software.
one type of parental control software gaining popularity, is the so-called Internet filtering type of Parental control software.
Ideally, Internet filtering software works by attempting to block or filter out unacceptable content based on certain preprogramed parameters built-in to the filtering software.
Most Parental control filtering software focuses on web site filtering.
The goal is to prevent various web sites from being accessed by the user based on the type of content the site features.
Common filtering criteria might be pornography, hate sites, or a legal or violent content.
Internet filtering software can also be set by the parent to restrict or block individual web site addresses, as well as certain keywords or key phrases used in search engines.
But the reality is, that is a impossible task. with over one million plus new pornographic websites coming online daily, not to mention the pornography now found running rampant through social networking and bookmarking sites many software companies are finding it increasingly difficult to correctly filter out the sort of objectionable material.
One tactic taken by some parental control software companies is to have staff continually search for adult sites and other objectionable content in order to update their software's database to assure that your child is protected against the latest threats.
Some Internet filtering software even allows parents to submit questionable web sites that are not already contained in the database for possible inclusion.
Then the web site is reviewed and either added to the and sites list or they may allow it.
The overall problem to the "list of bad sites" approach is that these software program databases become so large, that surfing the web while using this sort of Internet filtering software causes the web browser to run slowly as the software tries to filter and check against its internal database.
To get around this sort of web slowdown, many Internet filtering software companies tried to develop proprietary algorithms that use fuzzy logic to anticipate content that would be objectionable.
While these programs can be successful, even the best can only filter out at most about 80% of the pornographic material your child may stumble across.
And while a 80% success rate is pretty strong, it still leaves your child woefully unprotected and therefore defeats the purpose of the reason that will parents would buy an Internet filter in the first place.
Another common problem with Internet filtering software is that it is very common for its to block legitimate content accidentally.
Here's what we mean: let's say that your child was doing a report for school about breast cancer awareness month.
Depending upon the threshold set for the Internet filter, it's very likely that the Internet filtering software would block the word breast. As a result, the child would not be able to go to legitimate medical content sites in order to gather information for a report.
Internet filtering software such as this is usually a good choice for parents wishing to protect the innocence of children 12 and under. However as children become older and more computer savvy, this type of software becomes less effective in many cases.
Parental control software companies like PC tattletale.com have recognized the traditional limitations found in content limiting and/or Internet filtering software and have taken a different approach to how filtering and content limiting are done.
Rather than trying to block every site or every instance of a pornographic or undesirable keyword, PC title to all caters to parents with more realistic expectations.
The PC tattletale program allows parents to enter in specific URLs or Web addresses that they want their child prohibited from visiting.
For example if a parent wanted to prevent their child from visiting my space.com, it would be a simple matter for the parent to type in the URL of my space.com into the PC tattletale program thereby restricting the child's access to that particular website.
Keyword blocking in PC tell tale works much the same way. The parent might enter into a list of words that they found objectionable and did not want their child to view.
Then, should the child try to go to a website that contained one of those locked keywords, the PC tattletale software would reread the page before loading it in the browser and then redirect the child to another webpage such as yahoo.com.
Basically, you have many ways to backup your data... but all are not equal.
If your backup strategy is 'copy my files to a CD or a USB key once a month, and leave the CD next to the laptop', this probably isn't a great backup strategy - the time between backups is too long, and if there's a fire, you lose the data, AND the backup.
A better backup strategy is 'once per day copy my files to an external hard drive, and then take it to work. The next day, use another hard drive, and keep swapping them, with one hard drive always at home, and the other at work'. It's a good system, you'll always have a copy of your data onsite (at home) and another copy offsite (at work). The only problem with this way of backing up is that you have to remember to do the copying every day. Plus, you only keep one 'old' version of your files, and it'll be erased after 1 day.
Automated, cloud backup software is a much better way of backing your data up. Cloud software will automatically backup the data you specify, within a specified time frame, directly to the secure servers. Every time you modify a file, a new version of it will be stored in your backup - the old versions are kept for as long as you specify.
What are people doing to prevent computer hacking?
You can install a reliable firewall.
The best and only way to avoid hacking is don't connect to the Internet or any other type of network. Which is nearly impossible these days. As long as your computer's hooked up to a network or the Internet, you're vulnerable and at risk.
Keeping your anti-virus and your computer's software updated will help but will not fully protect you. Good luck.
Switching from a windows operated computer to a Apple/Mac computer has helped me out quite a bit as far as "safe net surfing" goes. But it's a costly/pricey switch.
The weakest link in computer security?
register
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more so the user and my oppinion below that would be the kernel. if you can edit the kernel you can do pretty much anything you want and its also less protected than the register.
When you look up things and it leaves what you looked up in your computer how do i get rid of it?
It's difficult. Even a reformat doesn't necessarily do it.
About the only way to guarantee it is to take the hard drive out, take the cover off, put it in a bucket of sea water, then launch it into the sun.
Do not open it. Do not click on any links if you did open it. Delete the email.
More thoughts
you ignore the email as if you did not enter the competition then the people are not who they said they are and are trying to hack your computer or find out personal information
How can intrusion-detection systems combat computer crime?
Passwords help to combat computer crime by placing another layer of protection against immediate access. Depending on the complexity of the password, a password may prevent access to a computer thereby preventing a crime for days or even weeks while attempts are made to crack the password.
What are the advantages of touchscreen?
Touchscreens are becoming widely popular in phones and computers. They have many advantages such as playing games that are meant for touchscreens, touching something is quicker than guiding a mouse to it and it can reduce the size of a device.
Disadvantages to using long passwords?
One of the disadvantages of the user name and password combination is that people often forget their log-in information. Also, many people use a password that is too obvious, such as 'password.' This can be a security issue for some people.
Why is it necessary to have a password?
The whole point of password is to protect the private content of the persons account.
There is absolutely no point in them being published in the open domain.
This would constitute a serious breach of the Data protection act.
