It used to be that computers at work or at home were used solely by the family or business that bought or owned it. No so any more! Today, it's commonplace to find a neighbor or co-worker whose computer was attacked by a hacker. In fact, U.S. businesses are attacked daily by hackers whose thousands of attacks threaten to corrupt their key systems, steal customer data, and otherwise abuse information-technology assets.



The SANS Institute, which provides computer security education and training, estimates that the average Internet network address experiences an attack every 24 minutes. In most cases, it's an unscrupulous hacker trying to infect corporate computers with viruses, worms and Trojans-commonly known as malware.

But Matthew Speare, Group Vice President and Corporate Information Security Officer at M&T Bank, says that in the trenches it's really not any single type of attack that poses the greatest challenge, but rather "keeping up with the sheer volume" of attempted attacks, which "continue to grow at about 25% to 30% a year."

Full-blown incidents reported to the CERT Coordination Center soared to 137,529 in 2003 from just six in 1988. Since 2003, the center, part of Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute, has simply stopped counting, reasoning that attacks have become so common that tallying them no longer tells us anything significant about their scope and impact.

Security breaches exact a huge financial toll. Losses of $130.1 million were reported by the 639 respondents to the 2005 Computer Crime and Security Survey, conducted by the Computer Security Institute (CSI), in conjunction with the FBI's Computer Intrusion Squad in San Francisco. Although that figure was down from 2004, losses per respondent increased in two key categories: Unauthorized access to information reached $303,234 in 2005 from $51,545 in 2004, and theft of proprietary information climbed to $355,552 in 2005 from $168,529 in 2004.

As hackers get more sophisticated, they're also highly motivated and more frequently in it for the money than any underground programmers' glory, says Joe Payne, president and chief operating officer at iDefense Security Intelligence Services, a VeriSign company. Today's perpetrators "don't want to be known for attacks and do them under the radar," he says. "A successful attack is one that doesn't get noticed." He cites the Windows Metafile graphics file format exploit, which surfaced late last year and went undetected in the security industry for about three weeks.

Refined threats call for a new security strategy, says Johannes Ullrich, chief research officer at the SANS Institute. "With a sophisticated attacker, you have to assume they may have ... a way around any particular safeguard you have in place," he says, making it all the more important to have multiple layers of defense, so the hacker must work harder to get around a series of roadblocks.

But software isn't Superman, guarding your systems and laughing as the bullets bounce harmlessly to the floor; in the real world, absent a defined organizational security policy and experienced personnel to carry it out and make intelligent decisions, your company has a big bull's-eye on it, and as the intruders keep firing away, one day they may just hit the mark.

To protect yourself, you need an Internet security team of experts making sure that you, your family, and your business computer are always safe and secure. The best protection you can have in today's rapidly changing world of cyber-attacks is to have expert support for all your Internet security needs that will provide technical support without any hassles and without charging you extra fees. It will become even more critical than it is today as time goes on. You need to find your own personal team of experts to rely on. If you ever have a security problem, you will want to have a trusted expert you can call for professional help, without any hassles and extra costs!

Because hackers and other cybercriminals are becoming smarter and more sophisticated in their operations, they are real threats to your personal security and privacy. Your money, your computer, your family, and your business are all at risk.

These cybercriminals leave you with three choices:

1. Do nothing and hope their attacks, risks, and threats don't occur on your computer.

2. Do research and get training to protect yourself, your family, and your business.

3. Get professional help to lockdown your system from all their attacks, risks, and threats.

Remember: When you say "No!" to hackers and spyware, everyone wins! When you don't, we all lose!