The Human Factor
Still considered to be the largest security threat the world over, human nature defies explanation even with terabyte calculations to predict what people would do and how they would react to stimuli. The internet has suffered a lot mainly due to human error, failure of equipment that was already way past their prime, cables dug up by construction people who weren’t reading the right plans and so on and so forth. many of the internet’s problems has it’s basis on human error, the mistake by a Symantec personnel to release a security testing file without proper security signatures and more.
People are still the hardest things to take into account just as thumb drives and media players are hard to police for malware, that can infiltrate even the most expensive security system opening it up from within by the innocent act of an employee who wishes to copy a track of song onto his office desktop or copy a file he made at home down to his computer for printing. Such behavior is the “X-Factor” of the IT industry and is still responsible for many of our security problems, but we can’t take the human factor out of the equation for it is us who made the beast and friend that is the internet. Presenting us with information, too much in many cases that it makes the most simplest tasks very hard, the hardest the easiest. The internet is ease to the extremes with fun and joy on one side and pain as you get your credit card bill that has been keylogged by malware, used to purchase 10 pcs. of iPods and an iPhone 3Gs for good measure all thanks to you and your incessant clicking on risky sites!