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HACKERS

Teenagers are often the cause of damage and other maleficience to home users, whether out of intent or out of curiousity, but there are also real criminals and real evil out on the Internet. That said, don't let the media mislead you. The term 'hacker' is a misnomer. Hackers want to learn and share knowledge. But the name is forever corrupted, so now we say 'white hat' or 'black hat' hacker. I generally just append 'malicious' to the term - dropping the colored hats - when I mean bad. The hardcore criminals are all over the globe, and many parts of the Russian Federation, Germany, and South Korea have been pinpointed as the origins of online criminal activity for several years now, including many high-profile cases. Organized criminal hackers try, sometimes successfully, to break into banks and other storehouses to steal credit card numbers and other personal information. Yes, that's more than a little scary. But here's the good news... they don't really care about the files on your machine, and they can tell you're not a bank, so most of them are not after your machine. If you're an easy target, you may be attacked by feckless teenager miscreants or some criminals looking to set up shop for free.

Follow the advice in this tutorial, and you'll be reasonably secure. But know this and accept it - you will never be completely immune to all potential threats. Ever. It's like saying you can do something to guarantee you'll never get another cold. You can take measures to reduce your chances of getting on, but not completely eliminate the possibility.

Somewhere between worried and complacent lies a balanced approach to avoiding hackers. That's the way it's always been, but the Internet still runs 24/7/365 with all the hackable parts in tow. After all, security is a chain. The hackers have to find and then test the links which they have the ability to circumvent - which varies enormously because certain high-level skills are often involved. If you spend time keeping the links as strong as you can, you may never suffer any real problems.