“The computers have become a neccessity”
“I can't live without computers.”
These sentences have become the cliche of our times. There definitely is truth behind them because computers have really become part and parcel of our daily lives. Not even a single person, who wears clothes, has his life unaffected by the computers. Although degree of involvement may vary. Majority of world's population is still not directly affected by computers. The emphasis is on the word 'directly'. Even if you do not deal with the computers directly, you do stuff that wouldn't have been possible without computers, not that fast to say the least. That cellphone in your hand, the MP3 player, the TV, even the cars all have the computers in some form or the other. These are indirect involvements of computers in our lives, but then there exists a large majority of us who interact with computers on a daily basis, yet some can't take their eyes off the screen for three consecutive hours.
The utilisation of computers ranges from merely checking the mail to general browsing to booking travel tickets to shopping. The computers are becoming such essential parts of our lives. However, most of us are not giving enough importance to the security aspect to home computers. A usual answer is 'I do not have any thing sensitive on my computer' or 'why would anyone want to break into 'my' computer?' or 'Even if someone does get an access to my comp, he wouldn't gain any thing.'
There is this false sense of security in general populace. Lets discuss this into a little bit more of detail. First and foremost, why do you have a computer? Your answer could fall into anyone or more of the following:-
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Web Browsing/ Email
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Financial (Online banking/ demat accounts)
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Online shopping (including travel planning)
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Gaming
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Home theatre/ Media centre
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Regular Office work (documents/presentations etc)
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Professional (Graphics/AV Editing/ 3D modelling etc)
Apart from the work that you do, there could be at least one more person using the same computer for similar or altogether different purpose. Till such time the computer is only used as a Home Theatre/Media center (I wonder why) there is a strong likelihood that you do have some highly sensitive data on your hard-disk. Don't think so?? Do you remember that resume you prepared for that job, with all sorts of personal details? May be the resignation from the same. May be a matrimonial biodata or your insurance claim and other financial correspondence. Perhaps you designed a cute card on PowerPoint for your beloved or have some account numbers written (and forgotten) in a text file somewhere. May be.. may be some really sensitive and personal stuff was delivered to your mailbox. Even when you are only browsing, you are leaving footmarks all over the Internet and your computer. Combine that with the address in your biodata and one knows what exactly you have been doing. Get it? And I haven't touched the issue of financial transactions – yet. Now, your credit card statement had some problem and you wrote the bank about it. That mail still lies there. Now one can have your card number from this mail, your date of birth and address from the biodata – pretty much of information to make you write another letter for correction of statement. Eeerie?? Such personal information will only occupy more and more space on your computer. What is more worrisome is that one does not need to go through a terabyte of data to find such info because like most of 'organised' users use the default 'My Documents' or equivalent folders to store all such information. So you see, a simple search of keywords like credit card no, date of birth, address in My Documents folder can provide sufficient information to give you a solid heart attack.
These were but a few instances where seemingly harmless information on your computer can be collated to reveal a host of details about you. So, what do we do?? One action is that do not use computer to store anything whatsoever – but why would you have invested your hard earned money in there? And for a moment lets consider that you do not store personal info, what about that other person using the same computer?? You can't be too sure.
Hopefully, all that blabbering would have driven the point across that everyone needs some sort of protection. So how do we secure our computers? Most of us are aware that one must have an anti-virus and should resort to frequent updates of the operating system and other programs. These do provide some amount of protection but these are miniscule to say the least. Remember, in the entire security chain, the weakest link is the human being.
