Although as we have already acknowledged I.C.T. is useful in a wide range of ways and has been one of the most influential things if you like of the 21st century like most things it also poses serious threats. Before the introduction of I.C.T. bullying only existed face to face and although thats what many people associate bullying with it also happens through various technologies , which is called cyber bullying . Other threats that are posed are spam , Phishing and denial of service attacks. All of these pose great threats and are huge critism regarding the development of I.C.T. .
Cyber Bullying
Many people adults and children alike associate bullying as being physical and face to face but often the verbal bullying and not knowing who is saying horrible things to you is often worse and more affects individuals mentally. Although most cases of cyber bullying is among children and teens adults can also be targeted and affected Cyber Bullying makes it easier for cowards to make anothers life a misery as they think they will never get found out. To be a vicitm of cyber bullying is horrible and the messages that some idviduals send are extremyl hurtful. Cyber bullying and other forms of bullying can lead to horrible consequences and many bully's dont understand how serious the issue actually is , many victims self harm and may even commit suicide because of how isolated they fell. 33% of youth have been victimised by cyber bullying and 41% dont tell anyone about the issues they have. Victims need to know that the only way to resolve the problems is by telling someone about the problems they are facing ; a teacher , a friend or even a family member anybody that you can trust and rely on. Cybel bullying can happen in a number of forms via social networking sites such as facebook , email , through text messages and calls and even through micro-blogging sites such as twitter. The fact that before the development of computers , the internet and phones etc this type of bullying did'nt exist and was not around and so meant that there were much less cases of bullying as individuals did not have the access to the means of bullying. This is a major flaw and a huge potential threat to the futher development of I.C.T. due to the serverity of the situation and how it strongly affects people and can ultimately lead to the death of certain individuals and can also lead to many others being harmed or targeted for one reason or another.Although the major problem of cyber bullying is being improved i belive that it will be something that will never go away and so to stay safe online and to try and prevent cyber bullying as best as possible you should follow saefty rules and precautions to keep you safe.
Spam
Spam is the use of electronic messaging to a large group of people that are found on a mailing list most commonlly via email to usually advertise or sell a product. The emails are all almost identical and are often reffered to as 'junk mail' or unsolicited bulk mail (UBE). Spam has slowly increased since the early 1990's and as there is no cost involved for the sender it remains economically viable for companies to send spam messages.Spammers collect email addresses from chatrooms, websites, customer lists, newsgroups, and viruses which harvest users' address books, and are sold to other spammers. Spam affects different people in different ways as big companies may already have firewalls in place to prevent spam but other people at home who use computers and laptops for personal use may not have firewalls or the right software to protect them from spam and so are more at risk than others . Spam often contains viruses which when opened can be use to hack into peoples computers to retrive private and confidential information. They can also contain attachments which could be laced with viruses and so to prevent getting viruses you should never open spam and the attachments it contains. Spam has been aroud since the internet begun and is a huge potential threat to the users of computers as they are at all times at risk and vunerable of easily becoming a victim of spam.
Phishing
The act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. The e-mail directs the user to visit a Web site where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization already has. The Web site, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the users information.
Phishing is a variation on "fishing," the idea being that bait is thrown out with the hopes that while most will ignore the bait, some will be tempted into biting.Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail spoofing or instant messaging and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to deceive users, and exploits the poor usability of current web security technologies. Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical security measures.To prevent being a vitim of phishing you should take safety precautions such as guarding against spam , communicate personal information via phone or safe websites , don't click on links open attachments or downlaod files from unknown senders in a email , never email personal or financial information even if you have a close relationship with the recipient , beware of links that ask for personal information , never enter personal information into a pop-up screen, protect you device with a firewall or anti-virus and check your online accounts and bank statements regulaly.
Denial of Service Attacks
A denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) or distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. Although the means to carry out, motives for, and targets of a DoS attack may vary, it generally consists of the concerted efforts of a person, or multiple people to prevent an Internet site or service from functioning efficiently or at all, temporarily or indefinitely. Perpetrators of DoS attacks typically target sites or services hosted on high-profile web servers such as banks and credit card payment gateways.Many attacks lead to service overloads and many leave the targeted machiene running extremly slowly or not at all meaning they cannot respond to the situation. It also menas that the commmunication between the victims and the company is extremly inadequate.Unfortunately, there are no effective ways to prevent being the victim of a DoS or DDoS attack, but there are steps you can take to reduce the likelihood that an attacker will use your computer to attack other computers: - Install and maintain anti-virus software (see Understanding Anti-Virus Software for more information).
- Install a firewall, and configure it to restrict traffic coming into and leaving your computer (see Understanding Firewalls for more information).
- Follow good security practices for distributing your email address (see Reducing Spam for more information). Applying email filters may help you manage unwanted traffic
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