The internet can do so many things. It allows us to communicate in ways never before imagined, access information not previously available and express ourselves in brand new ways. The internet can do so many great things but just like everything else new and exciting, it come with inherent risks. Today people have information online that can seriously harm themselves if given to the wrong people. Bank accounts, personal photographs and credit card information is flowing thru the internet and highly sophisticated hackers are constantly finding news ways to intercept personal data for their own personal usage. Just recently this past year a total of 392 companies were directly targeted for phishing of personal information. With more and more information available, hackers are having more and more information to attack.
Latest threats to internet security
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| USA leads in percentage of web attacks from a certain country |
Identifying specific attacks
Although many attacks come from anonymous address and are hard to trace, one group of hackers call themselves Anonymous and are leading the way in public displays against institutions through the use of online attacks. Anonymous is originally founded to go against the church of Scientology who they believe is hurting the greater good of the public and deserves to be taken down. In addition, Anonymous has taken part in and led many other cyber attacks. Most recently on October 19th, 2012 the group Anonymous attacked HSBC websites with a denial of service attack, shutting sown online banking capabilities and website hosting for hours leaving this video as explanation and proof:
Fawkes Security is run by Anonymous and their logo is the mask that looks like its from a Broadway play. This attack does not have a reason yet but stands to show that the threats are far from protected and that work is still needed.
The failed protection plan
Online Bill of Rights
In February of 2012 the Obama administration proposed an internet user "Bill of Rights." This bill is meant to protect the average user form internet hacking and privacy protection. This Bill is needed to protect the consumer from having their privacy violated from companies who either sell their information or "dig" for it with spyware. This "Bill of Rights" deals with six areas as stated but the white house. First is transparency, explaining that companies must be upfront about their privacy settings and inform the user. The next point states that if a company shares the users data it should be in a way the the user expected when the data was given originally. Third, The bill states that information shall be handled securely and responsibly, putting the company in charge of information provided. The bill also states that the consumers have the right to look-up and change their personal information provided. The final two points state that the company should collect data within reasonable limits and that consumers have the right to give information to companies adhering to this "Bill of Rights." This Bill, if passed in the next Presidential term, will greatly help the consumer in privacy protection, but much work is needed to protect the internet from hackers across the world.
Your title was great for this post and really made me want to read it. 8 years ago is when I started using social media. MySpace was the big site during that time and my profile was hacked a couple times, which is why I wanted to read more about what you wrote. Hackers in the US are increasing as you compared china with 50% and the US with 30%. We are not far behind, sadly. I had never heard of the hacker "Anonymous" before and I was never aware of their logo. I always wondered "who, what, and where" hackers come from. Although we do not have all the answers about hackers it is important to minimize them so that the amount of hackers does not increase. Reading about Obama's internet users "Bill of Rights" is an interesting idea. I think it is important for this bill to be passed because everything in today's society is becoming so technologically advanced that an increasing amount of internet hackers is bound to happen. Look at what happened to myself. I was 15 when I started using MySpace and a virus infected my profile sending out spam to friends of mine. I was unaware at the time that a hacker could find information out about myself. Where I lived, my name, and all about me. It's scary that teens are using social media younger and younger and are unaware of the power hackers have. It's important for this bill to be implemented so that the amount of hackers can decrease, especially in this tech savvy world we live in.
ReplyDeleteCorey, your ePortfolio this week was really interesting and informative. The facts and statistics given were really surprising such as the United States has 30% of its computers currently infected with a virus. The failed protection plan with SOPA really showed the controversy of government controlled plans and wanting the rights to stop online piracy. Privacy is such a big issue especially with the Internet because there are so many boundaries with which people always disagree on. Under what circumstances is it infringing on someone’s privacy? Here is an article from the NY times that voices it’s own opinion online privacy (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/technology/internet/setting-boundaries-for-internet-privacy.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0). Your section on the online bill of rights is very well written because it gives the background, gives a great description of how its effective and you close it by giving your own opinion on it and how it effects the major scheme of things.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I have never personally experienced being hacked, I am aware of how common hacking is to websites along with social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter. It is comforting to know that Capitol Hill along with president Obama is working on a solution to better online privacy. According to an article entitled “President Obama's Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights,” found on Forbes online (http://www.forbes.com/sites/mickeymeece/2012/02/23/president-obamas-consumer-privacy-bill-of-rights/), Obama states, “Never has privacy been more important than today, in the age of the Internet, the World Wide Web and smart phones.” The tenets of the ‘Bill of Rights’ are just what is needed to give the consumer the right to protection without giving up the right to privacy
ReplyDeleteCorey, this post included a great explanation of how serious internet attacking is (despite the not very serious title!),and how prevalent of an issue it is today. The second paragraph does a phenomenal job of providing statistics related to what types of people are being attacked, and how the U.S. stacks up against other countries in terms of threats to internet security. Norton Internet Security, the popular computer security program, has some great statistics showing the growth of internet attacking in 2011, available at http://www.symantec.com/threatreport/. For example, "Web based attacks increased by 36% with over 4,500 new attacks each day." These numbers display the immense amount of hacking occurring daily. The information you provided on Anonymous was for me the real highlight of this blog post. I knew there were hacking teams out there, but not one that released videos and explanations of their actions. It goes to how just how serious and scary of an issue internet attacking is. I also liked that you ended your post with how the government plans to further protect users of the internet with the internet user "Bill Of Rights." This left the reader with something to think about going forward, rather than an explanation of a seemingly unstoppable threat.
ReplyDeleteCorey, I really enjoyed reading your eportfolio this week. I thought you discussed this issue very well and with a lot of good information. You opening title grabbed my attention right from the start. I thought it was interesting how you involved SOPA into the mix. It was such a big deal with so much protest. I can remember certain websites, like Reddit or Wikipedia, shut down their sites. There were many more that took part as well. I also was able to learn from your blog. Hacking is clearly a huge, growing issue, but I had no idea how often or how much it currently affected the United States, or other places for that matter.
ReplyDeletehttp://mashable.com/2012/01/17/sopa-companies-dark-list/
This portfolio’s title really caught my attention and made me want to read further to see what would be discussed. I found the information about the hacker group “Anonymous” to be very interesting. The video posted on this portfolio immediately caught my attention since I recognized the signature mask as the same mask used in the anonymous bomb threat made at Penn State close to a year ago.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading about the six elements addressed in the Online Bill of Rights, I found the fifth element to be quite intriguing. It states that a company can only collect data within reasonable limits. As someone who may potential be affected by this Bill, I believe this element leaves much of the privacy of the citizen up to the discretion of the company- something I would not be okay with in the long run.
Cory, I enjoyed reading your post it was interesting. I believe that the Obama administration should focus on securing our sites when we browse viruses are annoying and like having car insurance it should be mandatory on computers. We do not need people from overseas or even here at home hacking our systems and using this information against us. Hackers should also be punished harsh if convicted of stealing people’s things. But the government contradicts themselves they allow hackers to have conventions in the United States about new methods of hacking. If this is such a problem then why do you allow this nonsense to even happen? http://www.defcon.org/html/links/dc-faq/dc-faq.html and this is completely legal.
ReplyDeleteBased on my experiences, the APWG report affirmed my conceptions of Internet phishing and viruses. It seems that everyone has had the misfortune of having hackers and viruses attacking their computers at some point in time, so the U.S. virus rate of 30% feels appropriate. Nonetheless this rate is something that needs to be addressed. The primary difficulty with this, however, is the trade-off between security and privacy. The price of having prominent Internet security is Internet privacy, and people will always be against the jeopardy of privacy. The group “Anonymous” and its attack of HSBC websites were disconcerting, as a rogue group of hackers had the ability to hack into a major financial institution, one which many are invested in. Equally importantly, the HSBC did not have the ability to defend itself against this rogue group. Internet hacking is as advanced as ever, and companies need to be prepared for such attacks. Regarding the online “Bill of Rights,” I do not believe it will be an effective means of stopping Internet hacking, much like Ryan Singel of Wired. He states “It’s not clear from the White House announcement whether these principles, which call for common-sense notions like notification, choice, responsible security and data usage, will be turned into law or whether they will instead become a code of conduct that companies can voluntarily agree to follow (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/02/privacy-bill-of-rights/).“ Based on the description of the “Bill of Rights,” it seems more like a set of general guidelines. I am not convinced that these basic common-sense notions are capable of stopping advanced hackers, like “Anonymous.” Ultimately, the United States needs to allocate more resources to lower the amount of Internet hacking within in it, but may be limited by the desire for Internet freedom and rights to privacy.
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