Threats to Computer Security
13
Intranet
Your intranet is your internal network, specially designed for handling
information within a company or a home network. An intranet is a unified
space for storing, exchanging, and accessing information for all the
computers on the network. This means that if one computer on the
network is infected, the others are at great risk of infection. To avoid such
situations, both the network perimeter and each individual computer must
be protected.
Since the overwhelming majority of computers have email client programs
installed, and since malicious programs exploit the contents of electronic
address books, conditions are usually right for spreading malicious
programs. The user of an infected computer might, without realizing, send
infected emails to friends or coworkers who in turn send more infected
emails. For example, it is common for infected file documents to go
undetected when distributed with business information via a company’s
internal email system. When this occurs, more than a handful of people
are infected. It might be hundreds or thousands of company workers,
together with potentially tens of thousands of subscribers.
Beyond the threat of malicious programs lies the problem of electronic
junk email, or spam. Although not a direct threat to a computer, spam
increases the load on email servers, eats up bandwidth, clogs up the
user’s mailbox, and wastes working hours, thereby incurring financial
harm.
Also, hackers have begun using mass mailing programs and social
engineering methods to convince users to open emails, or click on a link
to certain websites. It follows that spam filtration capabilities are valuable
for several purposes: to stop junk email; to counteract new types of online
scans, such as phishing; to stop the spread of malicious programs.
Removable storage media
Removable media (floppies, CD/DVD-ROMs, and USB flash drives) are
widely used for storing and transmitting information.
Opening a file that contains malicious code and is stored on a removable
storage device can damage data stored on the local computer and spread
the virus to the computer’s other drives or other computers on the
network.
