How much do you depend on your computer (lap-top, I-pad, I-pod, tablet, smart phone etc...etc) to control your daily activities? Take me for example, I check or conduct the following transactions on my MacBook Air notebook everyday for the following activities: Banking Activities including checking clearance and withdrawals, Bill Payments, Check the status of my PERS retirement and Workers Comp, Online College courses, T.Rowe Price stocks exchange, My Blog, Cash receipts or Merchandise Invoices, Real Estate contracts, Income Tax information, E-mails (ATT & G-mail) and that's just to name a few of the transactions that I depend my computer for and I'm sure there are many others, who use their computer for much...much... more...especially if they have their own business, so what happens when everything crashes because of a deadly virus or because of a noisy hacker, who just wants to ruin your day and every input of you and yours disappears...do you have a backup? Have you been writing things down or been saving your receipts or other vital paperwork? Or are they somewhere in your shredder's wastebasket.
Last week there have been a massive surge of cyber attacks where over 2000,000 computers around the globe had been infected with security flaws using a ransomware virus with the Microsoft's XP operating system, (ranging from British hospitals to Russian banks), which blocks the normal computer process and puts up images of demands for payment of $300 Euros. The fight against the vicious cyber virus has reached over $120 billion this year alone affecting both the world economy and global stock markets and making the cyber security franchise explode with web-wide business contracts and there is even speculation that by year 2020 their profits will reach over $1trillion.
It wouldn't be very long until these viruses catch up with the everyday user and that's with any device no matter how anti-virus proof you think your toy may be, so my question remains...are we, as high-tech advocates, ready for such a disaster? Do we have the capabilities to retrieve what's lost? Are we truly protected by these promises of privacy from theses anti-virus crime fighters? What would you do in this scenario? What's your plan of action? Maybe we should start looking for one!
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