How a Cyber Criminal Can Steal Information Off Your Computer (and How to Protect Yourself Against Theft)

Most attacks these days are financially motivated, which means cybercriminals are trying to get at either your data or your computer’s processing power to make money by spewing spam on your behalf or by stealing your identity. They`re after the names and numbers in your address book and want to access your social networking sites and steal your personal data (social security or credit card numbers, bank account information, etc).

How Cybercriminals Attack You

There are two main ways cybercriminals can attack you: the first is by luring you into using malware to open up your system to them, and the second is by hacking into your accounts or computer directly. Thankfully, there are ways to protect your machine against these attacks. Some methods are effective against both types of attack, while others are more specialized tools.

The most fundamental rule of data security is that no one technology holds the key to protecting everything. It’s important to have multiple layers to protect yourself so the weaknesses of one technology are covered by the strengths of the others. By using a suite of security tools, you can best protect yourself against whatever attacks cybercriminals will throw your way.