As the internet came to be, security was low profile and on the back burner for most corporations. Connectivity was a primary concern for Information Technology Professionals as the internet began several years ago. With this beginning, malicious users began to infiltrate and modify systems and data. Sending out viruses and hacking through weak unprotected networks, these users became an immediate threat to legitimate business that wanted to expand and grow globally. Many Chief Information Officers state that the ever growing concerns of security is one of the biggest tasks facing the information technology field today. With spyware/malware, worms, viruses,
internal threats and hackers, companies today face their most challenging time for ecommerce growth. With customers all over the globe, the protection of local assets as well as the customer’s accounts information is of the utmost importance. The historical events that have caused such a concern with computers began with the simplex hacking of phones by “Captain Crunch” and the adding of boot sector viruses to floppy disks. The growth of these malicious activities now can affect millions of users within a matter of minutes. The historical events for malicious and non malicious activities are as follows:
• 1960 Students become the first hackers• 1970 Phone Phreaking and Captain Crunch• 1980 Hacker Boards on BBS (early ways to chat)• 1983 Kids Begin Hackingo Note: Los Alamos National Laboratory, which helps develop nuclear weapons was hacked this year along with the largest theft of personal data from a large national retail chain.• 1984 Hacker Magazines • 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act• 1986 Boot sector viruses• 1987 File infecting viruses • 1988 Fist Antivirus solution – Encrypted viruses• 1988 Unix Worm• 1989 Cyber Espionage with Germans and KGB• 1989 Credit Card Theft Goes Mainstream• 1989 Date oriented viruses• 1990 Stealth, Polymorphic, Multipartite and armored viruses• 1991 Stealth, Polymorphic and Multipartite• 1992 Code change viruses• 1993 Viruses that attacked viruses • 1993 Hacking used to cheat phone system to win contest• 1994 Hacking Tools Become Available• 1994 Encoded Viruses• 1995 Kevin Mitnick Hacks the Government• 1995 First Macro Viruses• 1996 Macro viruses affecting Microsoft Excel• 1997 AOL (largest) ISP Hacked• 1998 The Cult of Hacking Takes Off• 1998 Spyware/malware begins to download to machines globally• 1999 Macro viruses affecting Microsoft Word• 1999 Software Security (Windows begins providing updates• 2000 Service Denied• 2000 Worm viruses• 2001 DNS Attack
Many other significant events have happened over the past forty years. This timeline is a brief listing of major events that took place. As the timeline above shows, malicious activities have been around for forty years and are growing by leaps and bounds every day. With government laws on cyberterrorism being put into place all over the globe, the continual infection of machines along with
hacking is at an all time high. The research materials presented show because of ecommerce and the growth of the internet, there is no end in site to the growth of these activities. This study will present research materials to give several opinions on the recommendations to protect your network infrastructure.