Protect yourself from the invisible threat

In today’s new world, your personal information is your most valuable asset. In fact, it is so valuable that right now there is a war being fought over it with all of us serving on the frontlines.

“We are at war. We are in the middle of World War III,” Sue Miner, associate professor of computer science at Lehigh Carbon Community College, stated. “Only it isn’t being fought on a battlefield, it is being fought on your computer at home.”

When the world wide web was invented in 1990, nobody could foresee what possibilities it would open. Activities like streaming movies and social media were so far out of the minds of these digital pioneers that concern for anything criminal was at a minimum level.

“The internet is not being used for what it was designed for, so it is vulnerable,” Miner said.

These people who are abusing the internet are not after your files. What they are doing is making an investment in you. Using your computer they can create a botnet, which is a network made by using multiple computers’ networks that can steal data to access those devices and control them. It is this breach of security that has caused the battle that we are fighting for our personal information.

To protect yourself from this privacy invasion, it is important to verify that you are using secure pass- words for your online accounts or different passwords for each account. Students can also buy virus protection software to ensure they are not endangered from an attack by malware or viruses. Visit stopthinkconnect.org to learn more how to protect yourself from cybersecurity threats.