Course overview

Introduction

With the evolution of Internet technologies, the issue of online safety has taken a main stage. Any computer that is connected to the Internet is vulnerable to possible Internet attacks.

Course overview

This course is designed for instructors to understand the significance of identifying the problems posed by online threats and provides a series of solutions which could to guide them and their students to ensure a safe online environment.

Topics addressed in this course are:

1. Online safety: What is it?
2. Understanding how Internet works and
3. The security threats posed by virtual attacks
4. Safeguarding your computer and personal information.

Unit 1:

Online Safety: what is it?

When a computer is connected to the Internet and initiates communication with the rest of the computers that are connected, it is vulnerable to attacks by hackers, viruses and other malicious software programs that pose a threat to the computer’s safety.

The safety threats include losing user’s identities such as passwords to private accounts as in online banking or social security number, or credit card numbers. Besides user identities a user may lose files, hard disk space, and may lose important system files by accidentally opening email attachments.

Unit 2:

How does the Internet work?

Internet architecture- ISPs and NSPs

A number of things are responsible to make Internet connection happen. These include the physical connections such as cables, wires, and devices like modems or network interface cards (a circuit board that is installed in a computer so that it can connect to a network), switches, routers, bridges etc. Every computer connected to the Internet is a component of a network. For example, at home, you may use a modem to connect to the Internet. At work, you may be part of a local area network (LAN), which uses Ethernet connection. But you still connect to the Internet through an Internet Service Provider (ISP). The ISP, in turn, may connect to a larger network such as a Network Service Provider (NSP) that provides backbone services to the Internet service provider. Thus, the Internet is simply a network of networks.

Unit 3:

The security threats posed by virtual attacks

What is a security threat?

Whenever an individual or an organization has a web presence, they are vulnerable to security attacks. Security attacks are mainly aimed at stealing, altering or destroying personal and confidential information, stealing the hard drive space, illegally accessing passwords to get to the private account information from the online banking services.

The security threats could be categorized as under; depending upon the nature and intensity of threats.

a. Data confidentiality

b. Privacy and copyright issues

c. Hacker attacks

• Sniffer Programs
• Spoofing
• Phishing
• Port scan
• Viruses, worms, and Trojan horses
• Brute force attack

d. Spyware

• Adware and malware
• Web programs

Unit 4:

Safeguarding your computer and personal information

It is impossible to achieve 100% protection from cyber crimes. The focus is, however, to minimize their occurrence and the resulting losses. Some common measures to safeguard ourselves are listed below. We can divide them into two categories.

a). Strengthening security over the Internet- To secure data as it travels across the Internet

b). Strengthening security of a web site – To secure data as it downloads on your computer.

a). In order to reinforce Internet security, we could use the following measures:

• Encryption
• Digital signatures
• Secure Web servers
• Anti-Virus software
• Security in Internet Explorer

b) In order to reinforce the security of a web site, we could perform the following:

• Configure the security features of a web page.
• Understand the role of cookies.

Links

Back to the Main Page: Jay_Chakravarthy

Back to Portfolio Page: Understanding_Online_Safety

Back to Community: ETAP 623 Sping 2009