Security Threats

Broadband internet has the potential to transform the way we live our lives. The internet has done its magic already over the last decade, online shopping is a common occurrence, video calling over the internet is an everyday event (for some) and searching for information of any variety has been transformed.

The next decade, with faster internet connections, promises to maintain the rapid speed of change, entertainment is moving online with films, games and video on demand in general, social networks continue to expand, and by the end of this decade, it’s likely that you′ll be able to get internet anywhere in the UK.

For all the positive innovations that the internet has brought, it has also opened the door to a whole new world of crime, and sometimes it′s easy to get caught out. Banking online is a wonderful invention, but you have to make sure you keep your details safe, social networks are great, but you can post too much information and leave yourself open to identity theft.

These examples, and others like them, are relatively easily avoidable, but things like viruses are much more difficult to avoid. Just this week the US announced that it had found a BotNet virus (a virus which quietly takes over your computer so that a third party can control it) which had infected nearly 4 million people and was practically impossible to get rid of.

These types of infections are global, there’s nothing stopping a computer in the UK picking up a similar virus, the threat from such viruses is considerable as they can – in certain conditions – open up all the information on your computer to a third party.

The only real way to protect against such attacks is to be extremely careful which websites you visit (parental filters are a good idea for anyone with children), to have strong, up to date anti-virus, and to make sure that your computer has all the latest updates, regardless of what type of computer and what type of operating system you have.

One good thing is that most people have a second line of defence in wireless internet connections. Broadband internet providers like Sky include a firewall within the wireless set up in your home, so this can offer an extra line of defence but it shouldn’t be a reason to bypass anti-virus altogether. Bluntly, in the internet era you cannot have too many lines of defence against cybercriminals.