Social Impacts of IT: P6 By André Sammut

Social Impacts IT impacts our life both in good ways and bad ways. Multiplayer Games Social Networks Anti-social behaviour induction Problems with Privacy e-Commerce e-Government e-Schooling Quick access of Information Job loss because of IT automation

The Abuse of IT IT can be manipulated to harm. Spam Cyberbullying Phishing Denial of Service attacks These are usual ways people attempt to harm through the use of IT.

Spam Spam is a method of advertising used by some organisations. It is often found in the form of bulk s sent, or posts on message boards. Spambots crawl the internet for s and website where they can post. Spam is difficult to get away from but there are applications which can filter out suspected spam posts, as they often utilise a similar structure. Spam is also used for Phishing attacks.

Cyberbullying Just as bullying can take place in real life, the internet can be used for bullying. Cyberbullying can be difficult to end, as it tends to be more persistent. As one can remain anonymous on the internet, it is also hard to find the bully alone. The bully can still be found if authorities are brought in, although many victims would hesitate to report any cases.

Phishing A damaging problem, Phishing attacks are used to gather a victim’s personal information, such as credit card details. A common attack is the classic from a Nigerian prince offering millions of money. To prevent phishing attacks, use a spam filter on an and use an antivirus application. Phishing attacks can come in the form of spam s, viruses, key-loggers, and other input capturing devices/applications.

Denial of Service attacks Websites can only allow a certain amount of bandwidth. Usually an attacker who has a problem with a person or organisation would take up all the bandwidth of their website. This temporarily takes the website down and causes an increase in the hosting price. The perpetrator of the DoS attack could be found through IP logging, although a proxy or VPN may be used. The Mac address of the computer used will provide a reliable way to find the person behind one of these attacks.

Potential Threats caused by IT: M2 Threats that can cause such attacks and cause great inconvenience to users are these: Malware – Viruses – Worms Identity Theft Hacking

Viruses A virus is a kind of computer malware that can replicate itself from computer to computer. Viruses attach themselves to other programs and websites and download themselves to your computer. They accomplish many different things, some cause you tiny problems, others may delete important information.

Worms Worms are another type of malware, but unlike viruses, they do not need to attach themselves to a program. They usually find a failing in a computer connected to a network and use it to replicate itself. They try to waste the bandwidth of these networks.

Identity Theft A person on the internet can act under someone else’s identity. Whether they have hacked into another person’s account or phished out their details, it is dangerous. A person can damage someone else’s reputation and possibly ruin their finances due to this. Someone who doesn’t understand IT well may easily be stolen of their identity.

Hacking Hacking is not necessarily bad. White hat hackers usually get hired by companies to test out their system’s strengths and weaknesses. Black hat hackers only cause damage. Hackers have many motives, either to bully a person, damage one’s reputation, or steal their personal information. Hacking is unlike other attacks in that a person is directly breaking through a system’s vulnerabilities, as opposed to getting programs to ease the job. Thanks to this, a hacking attack can have unpredictable outcomes.