Issues Associated with Access to Online Services

There are many issues associated with access to online services which will be introduced to you. The 3 main issues that are going to be explained in depth are: Reliabiliy of Passwords, Identity Theft, and Network Security. Many people don't realize how important these issues are to protecting your personal information online. lists

Main Issues:

Reliability of Passwords

Many people tend to use very easy passwords for many of their accounts because they find simple passwords much easier to remember. What they don't know is that these simple passwords put their computer at risk, and allow for hackers to access their financial and personal information. Here is a list of some of the world's most popular passwords:
  • 123456
  • password
  • Password1
There were many major data breaches in 2016 in which people's login details were leaked online. Security experts suggest that people use a different password for each service or website they have an account with. That way if one of your accounts are compromised, the others will remain safe. The way to create a password that will be hard for others to guess is by using characters that nobody could think of. Using capitals, numbers, symbols, etc. is the best way to create a safe password. [1]

Identity Theft

Identity theft can also be known as identity fraud, which is a crime in which an imposter obtains key pieces of personally identifiable information, such as Social Security or driver's license numbers, in order to impersonate someone else for financial or legal purposes. The 2017 Identity Fraud Study, released by Javelin Strategy & Research, found that $16 billion was stolen from 15.4 million U.S. consumers in 2016, compared with $15.3 billion and 13.1 million victims a year earlier. Identity theft has been a major issue in Canada, but an even bigger issue in the United States. In 2016, 13% of all complaints were related to identity theft. Identity theft complaints were the third most reported to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Identity theft complaints had increased a significant amount from 2013-2015. Some ways that identity can be stolen are listed below: [2]
  • Stealing your mail
  • Looking for personal documents in your trash
  • Tampering with ATMs or card machines in shops to steal your banking information
  • Taking personal information through public sources (e.g. phone books and social media) [3]

Network Security

Network security is any activity designed to protect the usability and integrity of your network and data. It includes both hardware and software technologies. Effective network security controls access to the network. It pinpoints a variety of threats and prevents them from entering your network. There are many types of network securities that are available to us such as: Access control, Firewalls, and VPN which most of us are quite familiar with.
  • Access Control: There is a process called network access control, which allows users to keep out potential attackers. In order to keep out potential attackers, it is necessary to recognize each user and each device.
  • Firewalls: Firewalls put up a barrier between your trusted internal network and untrusted outside networks, such as the internet. A firewall can be hardware, software, or both.
  • VPN: VPN stands for a virtual private network. A VPN encrypts the connection from an endpoint to a network, often over the internet. Typically, a remote-access VPN uses IPsec or Secure Sockets Layer to authenticate the communication between device and network. [4]

Questions

  1. Why do people use simple passwords that can easily be guessed? Why is it good to use a different password for each website?
  2. What are some ways that your identity can be stolen?
  3. How does a firewall protect your computer?
Answers

Bibliography

  1. Price, R. (2017, January 16). The world's most popular password is depressingly easy to guess. Retrieved February 06, 2018, from http://uk.businessinsider.com/most-popular-passwords-incredibly-insecure-easy-to-guess-123456-hacking-2017-1
  2. Facts Statistics: Identity theft and cybercrime. (n.d.). Retrieved February 06, 2018, from https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-identity-theft-and-cybercrime
  3. How to avoid or recover from identity theft. (n.d.). Retrieved February 06, 2018, from https://www.ontario.ca/page/how-avoid-or-recover-identity-theft#section-1
  4. What Is Network Security? (2017, December 20). Retrieved February 06, 2018, from https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/security/what-is-network-security.html