Cyber Safety Measures

TITLE : CYBER SAFETY MEASURES

ABSTRACT :

With the evolving nature of security risks, information security is currently one of the most serious issues worldwide. Over the past few years the wide spread presence of cyber attacks have skyrocketed including some extremely dangerous cyber attacks such as “cyber spying”, “ malware” and “phishing schemes”. Traditional cyber safety measures focus on the biggest threats of networks and systems. But traditional measures leave almost all the subtle dangerous risks unprotected. Recently the biggest cyber attack in the world resulted into a disaster with almost 20000 victims in almost 150 countries worldwide. Unrooting cyber attacks is apparently impossible. But improving cyber safety measures is possible.

The main goal of cyber safety measures is to keep everyone safe from cyber criminals.Cybercrimes can be defined as: "Offences that are committed against individuals or groups of individuals with a criminal motive to intentionally harm the reputation of the victim or cause physical or mental harm, or loss, to the victim directly or indirectly, using modern telecommunication networks". [Wikipedia,13 August 2017, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybercrime#Awareness] .

There are several types of cyber crimes for which cyber safety measures need to be adopted. Some of them are as follows :

Cyberbullies

Cyber Bullying is actually a kind of cyber crime where the victim is harassed through the electronic media. Computers,phones,tablets and different communication tools such as smart phones, websites social media sites are used for cyber bullying. There are several kinds of cyberbullying.

“

1. Denigration – posting mean comments online through emails, IM, chatrooms, “bashboards,” social networking sites, or websites set up specifically to make fun of someone.

2. Exclusion – intentionally leaving someone out of an online group or community, such as IM buddy lists or friends’ lists on social networking

Cyberstalking – continuous harassment and denigration, including threats of physical harm.”

(Cyber Safety ppt,13 August 2017,https://www2.cpsb.org/cybersafety/CyberSafety_%206_12.ppt)

File-sharing abuses

File sharing abuses occure when we end up downloading inappropriate materials, computer viruses, or spyware by mistake at the time of exchanging music, video, and other files. There are some kinds of file-sharing programs that even let other users access your device any time it’s online.

Exposure to disturbing content

If you click an advertisement or a confusing link on a search page, or if you share files online, you could view information or images that are disturbing or inappropriate, or not in keeping with your family values. This is exposure to disturbing contents.

Online predators

In the virtual world, people may not always be who they show they are. Online predators can use the Internet, social medias and websites to befriend children and young people. They actually want to isolate children and to convince them to meet in person. The only information known about the people we meet online is what they tell us. Child predators use that anonymity to trick childres, by pretending to be someone who is trustworthy.