Sometimes it seems like every Internet connection comes with a big "sucker" sign, and people are standing in line to take advantage of you. And the scary thing is that some of those low-lifes are really good at what they do. Use these eHelp pages to learn more about the threats, and ways you can deal with them.
- Spam is unsolicited bulk email – unsolicited because you didn't ask for it (unlike a mailing list that you signed up for) and bulk because the email message is sent to many people at the same time. Spam can be "legitimate" commercial email, or it can involve hoaxes, scams, and illegal activities. One especially dangerous form of spam, called "phishing", pretends to be a message from a financial institution asking for your credit card numbers, PINs, and other personal information.
- Spyware is a program that you install on your computer (sometimes without realizing that you are doing it) that either "phones home" with information about your computer (such as your web browsing habits or even your passwords), or displays advertisements on your computer, or both.
- Viruses, worms, and trojan horses are computer programs that make copies of themselves on other computers. Viruses and worms do it automatically, and trojan horses fool you into running them by pretending to be something else (spyware programs are often trojan horses).
These categories are often overlapping: many viruses and worms send themselves out as bulk emails.
- Confidential data can include social security numbers and credit card numbers. The Spider scanning tool developed by Cornell University IT Security Office can scan regular files for any number of different confidential data types.
For more information about computer security, see the eHelp Security page.
