Communicating in the IT Industry Lecture 11: Abuse of IT Warm up? Zatil Ridh'wah Hj Darot

Abuse of IT: Learning objectives Threats: Cyber bullying Spam Phishing Denial of service attack (DOS)

Threats As with so many things in life, good things have a downside. This is certainly the case with the IT revolution and with the Internet in particular. There is a whole range of threats and annoyances that IT users need to be aware of and protected against.

Cyber bullying Cyber bullying can be a worrying problem for young people. There are a range of different methods that can be used, including social networking sites like Facebook, emails and chatrooms. Cyber bullies often encourage their friends to join in the bullying.

spam Spam is unwanted email advertising. Anyone with an email account will tend to get unsolicited emails, most of which are __________ rather than dangerous. But email users should take particular care with emails that have attachments, as these may contain viruses.

Phishing Phishing is a method used by criminals trying to trick people into providing their online banking password and security details. The scam works by criminals sending people an email which looks as though it comes from their bank. The email tells them to click a link within the email which then directs them to a web page that looks like the log-on screen to their online bank account. However, the web page is under the criminals’ control and allows them to discover the victim’s username, _________ and other security details. The criminals then use these details to steal money from the victim’s bank account.

Denial of service attacks (DOS) This is a method of preventing a web server from providing a service by overwhelming it with so many requests that it is unable to cope. There are several reasons why these types of attack might be made. For example, a criminal might attempt to _________an online retail company by threatening to attack the site unless given a large sum of money. Sometimes political sites are attacked in this way by people who don’t agree with the political views expressed on the sites.