Child molesters (also called child abusers, [tag]online sexual predators[/tag], etc) are in my opinion the most disgusting type of “online pirates” mentioned above. They target chidren who post their profiles on different social networking sites, popular teenage chats, etc. Starting the conversations with potential victims as if being the child of the same age, those predators not only use the information gathered during chats for their financial benefit, but they also blackmail children and use their knowledge of children psychology to take sexual advantage of children.

Luckily for the world’s safety and sanity, hackers are usually interested in system hacking only from the point of view of getting a financial gain. Stealing is wrong, yes, but it’s far less dangerous than using hacking skills to abuse children.

Unfortunately there are a few morons outhere who combine some level of hacking skills with psychological disorders, and they use their skills to molest children.

In my opinion those are the most dangerous online villains. Adrian Ringland, for example, was caught in 2006 for molesting girls in Britain and Canada. He posed in the chat rooms as a teenager and sent to 13-year old girls a Trojan Horse mascaraded as a picture of him. After “the picture” was downloaded, bastard gained remote control to the victims’ machines and searched for anything that could embarass girls. Then he used this material for successful blackmails.

You can learn more about this frightening case of child abuse from this article:Internet predator jailed for targeting teen girls. Of course, nobody says that identity thieves or hackers that are up to financial gains are angels, but at least they target adults. Other than that there is not much good left to say about identity thieves, either.

It’s probably worth noting that not all identity thieves are hackers. Identity thieves not necessarily hacked into personal computer (or some website’s database) to get victim’s data. They could instead use one of millions online scams that are spread out like a plague all over the Net.

Whereas child molesters and identity thieves deserve absolutely no leniency towards their maliciouis activities, and thus should be prosecuted as harsh as possible, I wouldn’t be so quick to judge hackers. At least, not until we define the types of hackers, their motives and intentions.

Based on their skills and mostly, based on their purposes, I divide hackers into 4 groups.

There are white hat hackers, grey hat hackers, black hat hackers (also called crackers) and script kiddies.

Only 2 groups can be considered a “villain” type: crackers and script kiddies. You might be surprised to learn this, but only those 2 types will launch attacks that will harm your online business.

Black hat hackers will certainly try to get some financial advantage, whereas script kiddies might either stole your data or deface your site, which is annoying but can be easily corrected.

I will talk about “good” types of hackers in the next post.

It’s a well known fact that wolfs are the “corps man” of the forest. Sure, they are beasts of prey, but they rarely attack healthy animals. Most likely they will look for the weaken or infected members of the flock and by killing them wolves will serve the purpose of severe sanitation. Those animals would die soon on their own anyway, but before they do, they would infect many other members of the flock. By eliminating the weakest members of the flock, wolves essentially help to survive the rest of the flock…

I understand that the parallel among hackers and wolves is somewhat artificial. After all, hackers attack not only small businesses, but big corporations and financial institutions as well. Based on [tag]security tools and procedures[/tag] implemented at such institutions, plus the level of knowledge about the security-related subjects that could be found in security departments, those enterprises can hardly be called “the weakest links in the flock”.

However, most successful hacker’s attacks start from the meticulous identification and exploration of possible [tag]security holes[/tag] that could be found in the defence mechanisms.

Thus, each such attack reveals a weak spot in the security echelons and helps corporation to become more secure in the future.

Sure, one might argue that without hackers there won’t be a need to build such elaborate [tag]online security systems[/tag] in the first place. And my answer to this – it’s the law of evolution, only the best “species” survive.

Plus, without hackers the software and application development would go on a much slower pace, and we probably still won’t have tons of useful tools and gimmics that we enjoy today.

Welcome to OnlineWorldSecurity.com. We’re committed to make this site your one-stop resource where you will be able to find answers to major questions related to [tag]online security[/tag] (or at least information that could lead you to the answers).

What is actually online security? If you can give me a straight answer, I will certainly appreciate it. And I will applaud you.

But the matter of fact is, you probably won’t be able to accomplish this task no matter how good you are in certain areas related to this subject. You might be an expert in [tag]encryption algorighms[/tag] or super-wiz with all different servers you can find in existence. It might require you a few minutes to hack into a website that claims to be secure. Or if you’re on a “white side” of the game, to detect (and neutralize) the most sophisticated hacking attack.

You might be an ace with [tag]computer forensics[/tag] or be an undisputed authority in intrusion detection systems. You might specialize in Windows security or prefer the free world of Unix-family systems with their open source psychology.

Ironically, all this really doesn’t matter. All those skills won’t help you to define even in broad terms the borders of this elusive industry.

What is the difference between online security and Internet security, if any? Are those terms just two synonyms or may be there is some clear distinction? Or vice versa: this distinction is so ambiguous thanks to the very nature of the mystery we call Internet that it’s hard to put it in words?

Another question. It’s a common sense that website security, server security and computer security should be included in this field as well as the aspect of wireless security related to the online communications. The identity theft that can be caused by the breach in any of the sub-systems described above should probably be included in this area too, right?

But what about other industries? Is insurance related to the online security? Some may argue that it’s a different field. But can you really run successful online business without such protection?

Should legislative procedures be considered a part of online security? Sure, it’s a completely different field, and lawyers have a turf of their own. But can you really state that online security is something that only tech guys should be dealing with? How long will your online business be able to survive without proper disclaimers and other legal mumbo-jumbo?

Next question. Some people think that online security is the playground for big corporations. But can you really identify the difference between online business security (which is supposedly the prerogative of corporations) and personal online security?

Do you really think that if the personal computer of some big-time CEO is breached, it’s only a matter of personal online security of that particular individual?

On the other hand, do you think that if corporation’s database is compromised and hundreds thousands of clients’ records with personal data are stolen, it’s only the matter of that particular corporation?

Where is the border between those two concepts?

As you see we’re looking on the problem of online security from an angle which is quite different from everything you’ve read before.

Our purpose is to highlight those paradoxes and to establish the real understanding of the concept hidden behind the term “online security”. And if we’ll have to create the whole site with thousands of pages solving this puzzle one piece at a time, so be it.