03.21.06
Hackers on the cutting edge
This article discusses some aspects of modern spyware and virus evil-doers. The article calls them hackers, but in reality, hacking is not breaking into other peoples computers. The term ‘cracker’ is the appropriate name.
The article talks about point and click and drag and drop interfaces for maintaing evil empires of infected computers. Theres big money in stealing information. Normal people simply cant compete with a well organized and knowledgable group exploiting common security flaws. The crazy thing is that you can get a virus or trojan doing just about anything or nothing. You can get junk simply having a computer plugged in to the internet (without a firewall). On the other hand, you have legitimate sites using similiar tricks/techniques to provide a quality user experience. So if you trust everybody, you get screwed. If you trust nobody you get screwed. (e.g. if you block cookies, many websites start behaving funny). A well-informed user must keep up-to-date with the latest versions of their web browsers. Needless to say, update and update often.