In best-selling Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s novel ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’, a big-time fraudster and misogynist is exposed through one person’s abilities as a hacker. Salander ” the character of the book’s title ” accesses the crook’s computer remotely, garners the detail of each of his bank accounts, reads his emails in real time as they are typed, proving “in sum” to the reader that no-one’s IT life is secure.
There of course exists software dedicated to making your interactions with the virtual world as risk-free as possible. Their targets, however, are viruses and malware in all its forms. Any clued-up computer user invests in some type of security firewall. Much of the success of the virus protection any PC or laptop owner installs lies in the ability of the operating system to resist invasion.
Among the precautions the user can take are the following:
First and most obvious is to protect your computer from physical access by another person. Unless you live alone and are never visited, password-protection to your account is fundamental, and logging off every time you finish work should become routine. Also as an absolute minimum, be sure to maintain any ready-installed firewall that your computer may have; otherwise, purchase a reliable program and obey commands to renew when the time comes; ensure that your settings will alert you to software updates automatically. (Running old versions of software programs opens the door to possible viruses.) Within the corporate domain ” whether the company is large or small ”  it is well worth considering carrying out event logging. With an accurate log, the administrator can trace errors within the organization. This way, when an intentional attack occurs, an outsider having cracked a user’s log-in information, there exists a basis for establishing at what time and how the hostile event took place.
Irrespective of what operating system is used, no protection against the actions of determined, skilled hackers as yet exists. Whether or not, like Larsson’s fictional character Wennerstr0m one has something to hide, erring on the side of caution is advisable.