When computer was invented long back in 1942-43 (Colossus was the world’s first programmable, digital electronic computer, developed in England), people thought it to be the safest of the devices born till date. However, with time, loop holes of computers came into limelight. Hackers started confiscating highly secured, personal information from the computers. The rate of illegal access of data from public institutions and government offices began to increase.
Little did the police got success, as the hackers were very intelligent people with sound technical knowledge and tactics to carry on illegal opertions and then escape without getting caught.
Last year saw a massive hacking of confidential data from public libraries to hospitals and government departments. Both the FBI and the Interpol has undertaken a head-long hunt for the criminals. In some cases they were successful in putting the hackers behind bars, while in most cases they failed to do so.
The breaking news of December 2009 was the pleading of guilty by the infamous hacker Albert Gonzalez. He is charged of hacking into the computer networks of US credit card processor Heartland Payment Systems, US convenience store chain 7-Eleven and supermarket chain Hannaford Brothers. Gonzalez has got access to data from tens of millions of credit and debit cards. His case is said to be one of the largest data breaches ever investigated and prosecuted in the United States.
2009 has enlisted many cases of hacking and phishing such as 'Truth', a Christian dating website that was compromised by 4chan hackers and they used the information to take over the victims’ Facebook pages. In October, about 10,000 Windows Live Hotmail customers’ accounts were illegally exposed on an Internet site. And, the beginning of the last year saw a major hijacking in the form of Britney Spears and Obama Twitter Feeds following a phishing attack.
Hence, we all need to be more careful, while surfing the Internet and check on the daily mails that gets stored in our mailbox.
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