Super fast, super cheap but also super dangerous

Now, their intent has changed. They are trying to spy.

They are trying to look at what you are doing, steal your personal/confidential information – credit card numbers, PINs, account numbers, things that are most important to you - and sell it to make money.

It is no longer about fame and showing off. It is about making money and harming others.

Instead of hacking into a computer, they are using socially engineered techniques.

They think about current events, the situations that they can get you to respond to - a natural disaster, tax season, billing invoices, holidays.

They use tools that we use every day - email, websites (especially web 2.0 sites which can be manipulated by the end user e.g. blogs, social media sites like Facebook and MySpace, RSS feeds) - to infect or to get onto your computer and steal confidential information.

Phishing (an attempt via email to get a user to visit a fraudulent website to steal that user’s information via a web form) is an example of this.

Right now, many Kenyan internet users have no difficulty filling out any kind of web form with their correct details because there are no perceived threats on the landscape as yet and the capacity to transact online is yet to be fully realized.

Experts predict these elements won’t exist in a year’s time.

In fact at this point, many reading this in Kenya would probably consider a decent antivirus or PC protection suite an unnecessary expense that will not do much but slow the machine down and are happy to use freeware or pirated or cracked software, blissfully ignorant of the importance for valid updates or threat signatures that come with installing genuine security products or the fact that most downloadable freeware will more often than not be spyware out to target your machine.

Nevertheless just like their criminal counterparts, many online security companies and organizations are working tirelessly to ensure they are a step ahead of the bad guys by developing products and packages that give the customer overall digital protection, performance, and an easy to use interface and not simply antivirus like half a decade ago.

Nowadays, top suites are sure to include as much value added cover for the end user like personal identity protection and management, backup and in some instances maintenance of your PC’s health even when not connected.

As with everything else we embrace, it won’t be long before the most enterprising nation in East Africa comes to grip with the magnanimity of what the internet can do both good and bad.

Mwenesi is aContract Manager with Symantec Corporation. mwenesi_musalia@symantec.com