bored high schoolers and others are indeed interested in breaking into any pc or mac if they can, both for practice (you have to crawl before you walk after all, even in cyberspace), possibly doing something relatively harmless like changing your' background image to porno, or wiping your drive, or checking the cache of your browser for credit card info.
the port scans aren't that dangerous, it's when they come back later after spotting you're machine that it's usually a problem. most people haven't been stung yet, the posted lists of stolen credit card numbers are frequently so huge that most of the numbers will never be exploited, it's often an embarrassment of riches. then again, if it happens to you, and your traveling out of town and all your credit cards are suddenly maxed out, your phone card is used up, you don't have cash, you can't call home or buy gas, then it's a problem. not to mention that credit reporting agencies would just as soon call you a deadbeat as believe that your' credit card info was stolen, until you prove it to them, and then hopefully you'll notify all of the agencies that do this. or how about if they use your credit card info for a porno fest and to order some semi-licit drugs online, just try to fix that when a prospective employer runs a background check on you. if you've had an unprotected pc connected for years without a problem, i'd say you are truly amazingly lucky, more likely the machine has been scanned and nothing interesting found and the kiddies found someone more interesting to mess with. yes, user error is rampant, but there are hordes of bored teenagers and real criminals out there trying to break in. industrial espionage is rather common, any machine with useful business information is well worth protecting, unless you want all your customers to switch to the competition when they magically manage to underbid you just slightly on all your accounts (after all, different customers are usually given different deals depending on the size of the account, how well they negotiate, and how much you want to do business with them). if you run a small business, then you only have to worry about how skilled your competitor and his employees are, if it's a large business there are plenty of people and firms available for hire that are more than happy to help you break the law. extortion by hackers is fairly common, usually they pull down privileged info or your customers credit card list, and offer you the chance to buy it or have it posted on the net. these cases are rarely reported to the authorities, the extortion works because the bad press is worse than the actual loss of data security in most cases. believe me, when you get a list of customers, their credit card info, their purchase history etc. with an offer to be embarrassed or pay them off, most will pay them off. banks have been hit as well, and some of them have reported it, but i have to suspect most have not. if you need any proof that the hackers are out there and hunting, go to: < http://www.counterpane.com> and spend some time reading. admittedly they are in the security business, but those are about the only people with inside information about how common these problems are. for the average home user, mostly you should be afraid of having credit card info stolen, and possibly being embarrassed when your personal emails are read by all in a high school computer lab. most people have sent and received emails they'd rather not have on public display, and few use encryption for several reasons. your living on borrowed time, then again some people never lock their doors, and they are usually safe, until that one terrible night.... as some have said about network security, "it's not if you're paranoid, it's if you're sufficiently paranoid" Nick Harman wrote: > > A lot of people seem to be sitting at the network port of their macs armed > with shotguns muttering 'make my day' -------------- -- As has sadly been recently documented once again, there are three major gangs, the crips, the bloods and the badges, watch out for the badges..... -- G-List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- We have Apple Refurbished Monitors in stock! | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-List list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml> Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Macintosh? Get free email and more at Applelinks! <http://www.applelinks.com>
