Viruses as tools of data theft
Date: August 26, 2004Source: Computer Crime Research Center
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The perpetrator infects the computer with a virus installing a trojan, a program sending data to the owner. If you store data on your accounts on the computer, the criminal can withdraw money from your bank accounts and use your credit cards in your name.
According to the Federal Trade Commission of the USA, the number of crimes based on data theft has been increasing at a very quick pace. In 2003, 380,000 of Americans reported of their identity theft, American companies lost 25bn of dollars due to this kind of computer crime. This number is about a half of all complaints received by the FTC.
If you have important data stored on your hard disk, encipher them. Even when the virus breaks through an antivirus program, the unreadable file is the only thing the criminal can get. Cyber criminals seek easy paths as well as the criminals of the real world. Cryptooperation badly complicates the task of access to your information.
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