The role of the state in industrialization Essay

The role of the state in industrialization - Essay Example By developing a framework of analysis to examine business systems, Whitley explained at length â€Å"certain components of business systems and their interaction with institutions† (Tempel, 2001, p. 43). Whitley’s concept of national business systems has however been criticized often due to its weaknesses like portraying organizations as â€Å"passive pawns† which have little option but to comply (Scott, cited in Tempel, 2001, p. 42). With the help of extensive research and discussion regarding why it is that business systems in many developed nations continue to diverge, many factors are unveiled. While a market driven approach lays the foundation of employment systems in UK, fully developed vocational educational systems in France ensure high skill development and strict on-the-job training. Such pattern of allocating highly skilled workers even for the lowest jobs is not observed in UK. Germany, in contrast, practices the best system of economy wide vocational educational training. The rate of formal consultation is highest in European countries like Germany, Italy, and Sweden where employees are highly valued (Brewster and Larsen, 2000) in contrast to US or UK. As a result, there exists convergence of skills in contrast to polarization of skills as has been reported in UK business leading to â€Å"dead-end and low-skilled employment† (Crouch, 1997, p. 372). German business has advantaged hugely from VET system which demands continuous retraining and up-skilling (Crouch, 1997, p. 372).

Bruce Lee’s Passion in Martial Arts and Entertainment Essay Example for Free

Bruce Lee’s Passion in Martial Arts and Entertainment Essay Bruce Lee is a man who acted upon his destiny and was very famous for all his achievements in America and China. His determination as an actor and martial artist made him a legend throughout the world even though he died from cerebral brain swelling at the age of 32. He is considered to be the â€Å"Greatest Martial Artist of the 20th Century† because his philosophies and insightful teachings have influenced many, including myself. Since Lee was a man who made his dreams a reality he began his film career when he was six years old, brought the art of martial arts and film to America, and he also created his own style of martial arts called Jeet Kune Do. Bruce lee His first screen appearance was at three months old in his fathers movie (Roensch 15-18). This was the beginning, leading to over twenty motion picture roles and steadily increasing popularity among Hong Kong audiences (The Bruce Lee Story 1). Some of the movies he had made were Enter the Dragon, Fists of Fury and The Return of the Dragon. Even though Bruce Lee died so young, he still had the acting experience because he started acting when he was young. What is Jeet Kune Do? Simply put, its English translation is way of the intercepting fist. Bruce studies all types of fighting from American Boxing to Thai Kickboxing. His simple philosophy was rather than block a punch and hit back with two distinct motions, why not intercept and hit in one, fluid stroke. Fluidity was the ideal. Try and obtain a nicely-tied package of water, Bruce would taunt. Just like water, we must keep moving on, Inosanto reitterates. For once water stops, it becomes stagnant. Water, Bruce would always give as an example, is the toughtest thing on Earth. It is virtually indestructable; it is soft, yet it can tear rocks apart. Move like water. Bruce dissected rigid classical disciplines and rebuilt them with fluid, po-mo improvements. Its good but it needs restructuring, he would say. Classical techniques did not take into account the reality of street fighting. Jeet Kune Do did. It was pragmatic, reality-based, empirical- not a bunch of stances, postures and mumbo jumbo handed down from antiquity. Second, he brought the art of martial arts and film to America. The martial arts that he brought influenced many people in the U. S (Roensch 7). He also influenced many other Asians to act these days such as Jet Li and Jackie Chan (Roensch 9). When Bruce Lee auditioned for upcoming movies, he was turned down and was rejected because he was too oriental (The Bruce Lee Story 2 3). Even though he was rejected in American movies, he was still able to make movies in Hong Kong. His goal was to make five movies in Hong Kong but he ended up making four and a half movies because he died during the fifth movie (The Bruce Lee Story 2 3). The movie that he didnt finish was called Game of Death. Bruce Lee practiced the nunchaku with Mr. Dan Inosanto and this also made him famous. The nunchaku is made up of two short wooden or metal rods that are connected by a short chain. Mr. Dan Inosanto was one of Bruce Lees closest friends that taught him the art of the nunchaku (The Bruce Lee Story 2 1-2). Before he made the movies in Hong Kong, he made a series of shows in America called The Green Hornet starring Van Williams and Bruce Lee (The Bruce Lee Story 2 1). Despite popularity, he wanted to be known as an actor rather than a superstar. Bruce Lee had many famous quotes in various movies and interviews. One of them was ? The word ? superstar really turns me off, and Ill tell you why because the word ? star, is an illusion, it is something-what the public calls you. You should look upon [yourself] as an actor. I mean you would be very pleased if somebody said, ? Hey man, youre a super actor! It is much better than ? superstar' (Little 132).

Role Of Financial Markets In A Modern Economy

Role Of Financial Markets In A Modern Economy This essay examines the assumption, that a large financial sector consistently benefits the real economy. It has been acknowledged that the financial sector, not to mention some of its components, may sometimes become too large. It can end up posing a threat to both economic and financial stability, so the essay develops our understanding of where the optimal threshold lies. The regulatory measures and addresses the problem best: namely, preventing the financial industry from becoming too large and taking excessive risks, leading to the emergence of bubbles, and to the production of complex and dense financial instruments. And we should avoid imposing restrictive measures that will prevent the financial sector from channelling resources towards productive opportunities. In doing so, we need to make sure that our measures target non-traditional financial markets as much as traditional banking, in order not to encourage regulatory arbitrage and a return to business as usual outside the auspices of regulators. Financial innovation can impose a threat to both economic and financial stability, so we have to enhance our understanding of where the best possible threshold lies in determining the size of the financial systems. There is an emerging consent that while financial markets are generally conducive to economic growth, in the run-up to the recent crisis they were operating on an extreme scale. This essay will converse around four main points: firstly that efficient financial markets enhance growth, however, if they grow too large, then they may lead to a misallocation of resources and cause costly crises. Secondly, facts will be presented showing that in the build-up to the crisis, the size of the financial sector outgrew its trend. Thirdly, identification of some of the main reasons why this occurred and argued how to avoid that such imbalance again. To this end, regulation and supervision can play an important role. Lastly, while ensuring that the financial sector does not grow beyond its optimal size, the new regulatory framework should not reach the point of financial domination. The knowledge from recent industrialised countries has relatively claim, that deeper financial markets improve economic efficiency, lead to a better allocation of productive capital, and increase long-term economic growth. However, the frequent financial shocks associated with dynamic financial industries, and in particular the recent economic crisis, also highlight the role large financial markets play in downside risk. This mutually shows that there is a trade-off between a highly vibrant financial sector and the overall stability of the financial system. (Ranciere, R., Tornell, A., and F. Westermann, 2008) The first part of this essay will argue the aspects of the financial sector which can give us key insights into this trade-off is its size. When reasonably large, financial markets promote economic efficiency by recognising productive opportunities and transforming savings into the investment vitally to finance those opportunities. However, when they become too large, relative to what is implied by economic fundamentals, problems like financial complexity, poorly understood financial innovation, flock behaviour, and endogenous risk-taking to name just a few suddenly outweigh the benefits. The recent financial and economic crisis is a stark example of that. The pre-crisis period was characterised by the growing size, complexity and connectiveness of financial markets, with ensuing unfavourable effects on the global economy. In order to address the problem, regulatory measures are being taken to impose limits on the tendency of the financial sector to create downside risk. But a fine balance needs to be reached: these measures must be effective but not penalizing; they need to address the core of the problem without excessively limiting the ability of financial markets to sustain economic growth. Before going on the second point, it is perhaps useful to explain why we still need a large and dynamic financial industry. In general, deep and efficient financial markets improve economic performance both by raising the level of growth and by allocating productive capital more efficiently, ultimately generating benefits for the society as a whole( Rajan, R., and L. Zingales, 1998) . The difference is particularly noticeable when it comes to the financing of innovative ideas, where the much larger US venture capital industry has been credited over the years with the emergence of whole new industries and such innovative corporate giants as Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Google. All this leads us to the second point of the essay, which is how the size of the financial sector outgrew its trend. Most economists think the relationship between finance and growth as one in which more is better. However, the recent crisis has revealed that a financial sector which goes beyond a certain threshold (or breaking point) can harm the economy and society as a whole. In particular, an oversized financial industry tends to intensify information asymmetries, moral hazard problems, and the hunt for yield, leading to excessive risk-taking and over-leveraging of the system. The events of 2007-2008 suggest that when financial sectors are too large, the allocation of resources may become inefficient. Numerous examples of misallocation were associated with the credit growth of the early 2000s as well, of which the expansion of the US sub-prime mortgage market is just the most obvious one. We can think of examples in Europe too for instance, growth in Spain relied for years on an ever-expanding real estate sector fuelled by increasing borrowing.( Popov, A., and P. Roosenboom, 2009) After discussing the negative penalties on financial stability and economic growth that a too large financial sector can generate, in this section I will analyse available evidence to show that the financial industry as a whole has grown to a sub-optimal size. It is important to note that this is not due to rising compensation in traditional financial sectors like credit and insurance, but due to the large increase in compensation in non-traditional financial activities like investment banks, hedge funds and the like (Figure 1) below. This is another reason why any changes to the regulatory environment aimed at preventing systemic crises in the future will have to deal not just with the traditional banking sector, but with the so-called shadow banking sector as well. Unfortunately, it is not clear whether the crisis has imposed discipline on the financial sector. In theory, one would have expected the crisis to have resulted in, for instance, a new bonus structure with smaller rewards for short-term behaviour, less proprietary trading and more trading on own resources, greater aversion to the accumulation of debt, etc. To find possible remedies to the excessive size of the financial sector, it is important to understand the factors that have allowed it to grow too big, which leads us to the third part of the essay. As mentioned before, one obvious reason is excessive profits. Not only did rapid financial innovation enable Wall Street to encourage risk-taking through record pay, but this process also diverted human resources away from more traditional productive occupations towards the shadow banking system. Of course, an equally important reason for the increase in the size of the financial sector is the global accumulation of savings over time. It has been argued that the pre-crisis boom in US real estate and securitisation markets reflected high foreign demand for safe US assets resulting from excess world savings in the context of persistent global imbalances.( Caballero, R., and A. Krishnamurthy, 2009) According to this interpretation, foreign asset demand not only pushed down the risk-free interest rate in the US but also compressed the risk premier on risky assets. The low cost of financing, in turn, fostered an increase in the level of leverage of the domestic financial sector which exacerbated systemic risk While the recent increase in the profits of the industry was certainly due to improved financial innovation and technology, it can also be attributed to the higher risks that the financial sector undertook.(Biais, B., Heider, F. and M. Hoerova, 2010)By limiting these risks, it will be possible to reduce the size of the financial sector as well. For instance, suppose that risks decrease because of limits to leverage. This may imply that profits will go down as well. As a consequence, the financial sector will attract fewer resources, private capital will flow to more profitable industries, and its size will decrease. A natural question is how the new regulatory framework will affect economic growth. This question will answer the final part of the essay. It is necessary to ensure financial stability and restrain excessive credit, at the same time this process should not go too far and impair economic growth. There is substantial macro level evidence that the depth of the credit markets measured alternately as liquid liabilities and commercial bank credit to the private sector is associated with higher economic growth. (King, R., and R. Levine, 1993.) Changes in the supply of credit, both in terms of volumes and credit standards, have been shown to have a significant effect on real economic activity through business lending; the evidence is stronger for the euro area than the US. Studies that have gone into the mechanisms of this effect have generally concluded that the positive effect of credit markets on growth comes from reallocation of investment from dying to booming sectors, from higher rat es of new business entry, and from higher growth of industries consisting mainly of small firms. As I mentioned above, the expansion of sub-prime lending clearly imposed a negative externality on the whole economy, and so in hindsight regulatory measures that would have prevented such credit expansion could in fact have been beneficial. To summarise, capital requirements, and leverage ratios serve well to illustrate the trade-off between stability and growth as mentioned at the beginning. The examples provided earlier show that the costs incurred when an oversized financial system unwinds are very large and outweigh any pre-crisis gains. Therefore, practical regulatory actions are to restore the balance between stability and growth is perfectly justified. Conclusion Financial markets are central players in a dynamic modern economy, channelling resources from savers to borrowers and allocating them to productive investment opportunities. At the same time, our experience in the past decade has highlighted the dangers of allowing financial sectors to become too large. In doing so, negative developments like the hunt for rents, the propensity to herd and create bubbles, the misalignment of incentives, and the production of complex innovative financial instruments may outweigh the benefits of finance. Given the obvious negative impact of an excessively large financial industry, we keep asking ourselves whether limits should be imposed on the size of the financial sector itself. It must be clear from the evidence that has been presented that the answer to this question is yes. However, it is also essential to make sure that we do not repress financial markets to the point of jeopardising their contribution to growth. Therefore, the measures outlined are aimed at making the industry safer rather than weaker, and should not be considered punitive. Their goal is to re-direct the financial sector so that it avoids embarking on unsustainable patterns. These actions are aimed at commercial banks as well as at non-traditional financial players to make sure that excessive risk-taking is not taking place outside the auspices of regulators. Ensuring that the financial sector is large enough to strengthen the economy while not being too large is a task that we take very seriously. There is a clear trade-off between economic growth and financial stability, and it is a difficult but critical task to strike a good balance, ensuring that we end up neither with too little growth nor with too little stability.

My Best Friend Essay -- Friendship Essay

My Best Friend Have you ever had someone in your life who helped you figure out who you were? Someone who showed you the right path. Someone who was there right next you even if you did not take that path. Someone who always seemed to be right, but never held it against you when you were not. Someone whom without your life would most likely be entirely different. I have. Her name was Jessica.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Jessica was more than my neighbor. She was more than my mentor. She was my best friend. Jessica lived three houses down from me when I moved into a new neighborhood. She made moving to a new neighborhood a lot easier. She was one of those people who was friends with everybody. She was friends with everyone because she was so special. She was always in a good mood, always had something pleasant to say, and no matter what was going on, she could get you to smile.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Jessica was a few years older than me but we were both young. I was in the fifth grade and she was in junior high when we met. She was tall for her age and practically towered over me. She almost always kept her long golden hair pulled back into a pony tail because she was a bit of a tomboy and liked to be athletic. But when she let it down and it waved in the gentle breeze, there was no doubt she was a girl. Her facial features were very soft, yet if you met her once, you would never forget her name. She also had the deepest green eyes that would sparkle so bright when she flashed her pearly white teeth, s...

Developing a Motivational Plan Essay

A motivation plan for any school is extremely important for the success of any educational program. Students who are not motivated will not learn and in turn won’t succeed. Many components should be included in a motivational plan so that all the needs of students are met and each student has goals that are attainable and can be reached. According to Hersey (2008), â€Å"Goals should be set high enough that a person has to stretch to reach them but low enough that they can be attained.† Goal setting, rewards, both tangible and non-tangible, and a sense of belonging are motivational components that should be included in a motivational plan. The first part of a motivational plan that I would feel essential for my school would be goal setting. At the current school that I work at, I feel like this is a missing part of our motivational plan and it greatly affects our students. Without goals, the students don’t know what they are working towards, this creates confusion and a detachment from the meaning of education. Although some students may set personal goals, I feel like it’s important for there to be group goals so that the students can work together to achieve them and be more motivated. Goals should be set high, but not so high that students can’t achieve them. Goals that are too high would do the opposite of motivate, it would create despair and students would give up eventually because they would know that their effort is not worthwhile. Setting goals that are attainable will motivate students and will give students the confidence that they need to continue their efforts in reaching additional goals. If students know that they can reach a goal, something that is attainable and reachable, they’ll be more motivated to try so that they can have that feeling of accomplishment. Another important aspect of goal setting is that the goals are changed and updated frequently so that students constantly have something to work for. Once a student achieves a particular goal, the motivation will be gone unless they have something else to work towards, something else to motivate them. Hersey (2008) also supports this idea by stating, â€Å"Once the child becomes proficient in attaining a particular goal, it becomes appropriate for the parent to provide an opportunity for the child to identify and set new goals.† So, it’s my plan to work with the students to create attainable goals frequently so that students have constant motivation and something that they can always work towards. I believe that goal setting is a major component of any motivation plan and this will be the main focus behind mine. I feel that it’s extremely important that students have goals and something to work towards, otherwise there will be no motivation behind their actions. The second component of my motivation plan will be tangible and intangible rewards. Students will work towards something and be more motivated if they receive something in return. This is similar to why anyone get a job. They work hard and complete actions in order to receive the tangible reward of money and the intangible reward of accomplishment. Students are going to be more motivated and work harder if they will get something in return for their hard work, whether it’s intangible like a feeling, or tangible, like good grades or rewards. â€Å"It is no surprise, then, that to improve academic achievement of middle school students, successful programs incorporate the social contexts for both intrinsic motivation and internalized extrinsic motivation† (Wilson & Corpus, 2001). Although studies have shown that extrinsic rewards are only beneficial short term and can be detrimental in long term situations, (Corpus &Wilson, 2001), I believe that every now and then a tangible reward is needed and can result is a positive outcome and increased motivation. An example of this is a current motivational strategy that we use at my current school regarding awards for good grades, citizenship, and good attendance. Students get awards every semester for achieving milestones in these categories and I believe that it does increase student motivation. If a student is close to the end of the semester and has a B+ in one class, they will are motivated to raise that one grade in order to get the highest award presented to them in front of their parents, teachers, and students, since we do the award ceremony during the school day. I have personally seen the motivation that is created by these awards and I plan to include this in my motivational plan as well. Intangible awards can also be very successful in creating motivation and are more beneficial long term although short term effects may not be as common as with the tangible rewards. Students respond to intrinsic rewards like praise, self assurance, and accomplishment. â€Å"There are, however, many intangible rewards, such as praise or power, that are just as important and effective for use as incentives when endeavoring to evoke a particular behavior† (Hersey, 2008). To incorporate this into my plan I would like to see more praise for good behavior, as well as giving students more choices in the classroom. By giving students choices, they will feel more empowered by their choice and feel more accomplished when they achieve it, resulting in increase motivation. Finally, I would like to see a good sense of community and belonging in my school community. According to Glasser (1985), the five basic needs common to all people are the need for belonging, power, fun, freedom, and survival. With a sense of belonging, students will have more ownership over their behavior and will be more motivated to succeed. It’s been my experience that students that are out-casts aren’t motivated to succeed because they have no reason to, no one to share their success with. The opposite would happen if students feel like they belong and have someone to share their motivation and success with. Overall, more than one component is important to any successful motivational plan. My plan will focus on goal setting, rewards, and a sense of belonging or community within my school. With these factors I hope that my students will be motivated to learn and become better students and people. It’s my belief that although many factor are essential to a motivation plan, it’s crucial that goals are set so that students have something to work towards. Without a goal to work towards, students won’t feel like they have a reason to be motivated. These are the components that will be included in my motivational plan for my future school.

Attacks Used to Hack Email Accounts and Their Preventive Measures Essays

Attacks Used to Hack Email Accounts and Their Preventive Measures Essays Attacks Used to Hack Email Accounts and Their Preventive Measures Essay Attacks Used to Hack Email Accounts and Their Preventive Measures Essay The present-day network threat scenario is unprecedented in both scale and impact. CYBER CRIMINALS has become increasingly confident in their own abilities because of good organization skills and years of experience in evading law enforcement. Armed with sophisticated technical knowledge, a whole bunch of tools and operating systems with exploits, their sole objective today is to cause irreparable damage to the security and business interests of organizations. The biggest brand name between all terrorist groups across the world The Al-Qaeda, Islamic militant group Tehrik-I-Taliban Pakistan and many more terrorist organizations perform cyber terrorism i. e. , disrupt attacks against information systems for the primary purpose of stealing confidential information regarding the nation’s security issues and secondary purpose is creating alarm and panic among the cyber army of the nation. This can include use of information technology to organize and execute attacks against networks, computer systems and telecommunications infrastructures, or for exchanging information or making threats electronically.Therefore there is a huge requirement for each and every one of us to know the minimum preventive measures so as to avoid the exploitation of a hacker as he may use our computer as a shield to hide his identity. Our paper discusses on the types on hackers and the main motto behind these people performing these attacks in an attempt to compromise any computer system. Our paper emphasizes on various methods by which passwords can be stolen and then used for personal purpose. A live performance on how an account can be hacked (say facebook) will be demonstrated by using the phishing attack.All the preventive measures that needs to be taken to overcomes these problems and stay safe from this cyber world attackers will be briefly explained so as to make everyone technically strong and preventing their computers getting exploited†¦ Let’s build a stronger nation†¦. JAI HIND†¦ Vamshi Krishna Gudipati A. K. A h4x0r le610n, 4th year b. tech, COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING, WARANGAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE. Information security means protecting information and information systems from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, perusal, inspection, recording or destruction.The terms information security, computer security and information assurance are frequently used interchangeably. These fields are interrelated often and share the common goals of protecting the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information; however, there are some subtle differences between them. These differences lie primarily in the approach to the subject, the methodologies used, and the areas of concentration. Information security is concerned with the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data regardless of the form the data may take: electronic, print, or other forms.Computer security can focus on ensuring the availability and correct operation of a computer system without concern for the information stored or processed by the computer. Information assurance focuses on the reasons for assurance that information is protected, and is thus reasoning about information security. Governments, military, corporations , hospitals, and private businesses amass a great deal of confidential information about their employees, customers, products, research, and financial status.Most of this information is now collected, processed and stored on electronic computers and transmitted across networks to other computers. WHAT IS HACKING? Unlike most computer crime / misuse areas which are clear cut in terms of actions and legalities (e. g. software piracy), computer hacking is more difficult to define. Computer hacking always involves some degree of infringement on the privacy of others or damage to computer-based property such as files, web pages or software. The impact of computer hacking varies from simply being simply invasive and annoying to illegal.There is an aura of mystery that surrounds hacking, and a prestige that accompanies being part of a relatively elite group of individuals who possess technological savvy and are willing to take the risks required to become a true hacker. An interesting alternative view of how hackers positively impact areas such as software development and hacker ideology is presented in Technology and Pleasure: Considering Hacking Constructive. WHO IS A HACKER? In the computer security context, a hacker is someone who seeks and exploits weaknesses in a computer or computer network.Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, such as profit, protest, or challenge. The subculture that has evolved around hackers is often referred to as the computer underground but it is now an open community. While other uses of the word hacker exist that are not related to computer security, such as referring to someone with an advanced understanding of computers and computer networks, they are rarely used in mainstream context. They are subject to the long standing hacker definition controversy about the true meaning of the term hacker. KINDS OF HACKERS White HatA white hat hacker breaks security for non-malicious reasons, perhaps to test their own security system or while working for a security company which makes security software. The term white hat in Internet slang refers to an ethical hacker. This classification also includes individuals who perform penetration tests and vulnerability assessments within a contractual agreement. The EC-Council, also known as the International Council of Electronic Commerce Consultants, is one of those organizations that have developed certifications, courseware, classes, and online training overing the diverse arena of Ethical Hacking. Black Hat A black hat hacker is a hacker who violates computer security for little reason beyond maliciousness or for personal gain (Moore, 2005). Black hat hackers form the stereotypical, illegal hacking groups often portrayed in popular culture, and are the epitome of all that the public fears in a computer criminal Black hat hackers break into secure networks to destroy data or make the network unusable for those who are authorized to use the network.They choose their targets using a two-pronged process known as the pre-hacking stage. Part 1: Targeting The hacker determines what network to break into during this phase. The target may be of particular interest to the hacker, either politically or personally, or it may be picked at random. Next, they will port scan a network to determine if it is vulnerable to attacks, which is just testing all ports on a host machine for a response. Open ports- those that do respond- will allow a hacker to access the system. Part 2: Research and Information GatheringIt is in this stage that the hacker will visit or contact the target in some way in hopes of finding out vital information that will help them access the system. The main way that hackers get desired results from this stage is from social engineering, which will be explained below. Aside from social engineering, hackers can also use a technique called dumpster diving. Dumpster diving is when a hacker will literally search through users garbage in hopes of finding documents that have been thrown away, which may contain information a hacker can use directly or indirectly, to help them gain access to a network.Part 3: Finishing The Attack This is the stage when the hacker will invade the preliminary target that he/she was planning to attack or steal. Many hackers will be caught after this point, lured in or grabbed by any data also known as a honeypot (a trap set up by computer security personnel). Grey Hat A grey hat hacker is a combination of a Black Hat and a White Hat Hacker. A Grey Hat Hacker may surf the internet and hack into a computer system for the sole purpose of notifying the administrator that their system has been hacked, for example.Then they may offer to repair their system for a small fee. Hacktivists Some hacker activists are motivated by politics or religion, while others may wish to expose wrongdoing, or exact revenge, or simply harass their target for their own entertainment. State Sponsored Hackers Governments around the globe realize that it serves their military objectives to be well positioned online. The saying used to be, He who controls the seas controls the world, and then it was, He who controls the air controls the world. Now it’s all about controlling cyberspace.State sponsored hackers have limitless time and funding to target civilians, corporations, and governments. Spy Hackers Corporations hire hackers to infiltrate the competition and steal trade secrets. They may hack in from the outside or gain employment in order to act as a mole. Spy hackers may use similar tactics as hacktivists, but their only agenda is to serve their client’s goals and get paid. Cyber Terrorists These hackers, generally motivated by religious or political beliefs, attempt to create fear and chaos by disrupting critical infrastructures.Cyber terrorists are by far the most dangerous, with a wide range of skills and goals. Cyber Terrorists ultimate motivation is to spread fear, terror and commit murder. VARIOUS ATTACKS USED BY A HACKER PHISHING Phishing is a way of attempting to acquire information such as usernames,passwords, and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in anelectronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public.Phishing is typically carried out by e-mailspoofing or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to deceive users, and exploits the poor usability of current web security technologies. Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical security measures. A phishing technique was described in detail in 1987, and the first recorded use of the term phishing was made in 1996.The term is a variant of fishing, probably influenced by phreaking, and alludes to baits used in hopes that the potential victim will bite by clicking a malicious link or opening a malicious attac hment, in which case their financial information and passwords may then be stolen. KEY LOGGING These are software programs designed to work on the target computer’s operating system. From a technical perspective there are five categories: * Hypervisor-based: The keylogger can theoretically reside in a malware hypervisor running underneath the operating system, which remains untouched.It effectively becomes a virtual machine. Blue Pill is a conceptual example. * Kernel-based: This method is difficult both to write and to combat. Such keyloggers reside at the kernel level and are thus difficult to detect, especially for user-mode applications. They are frequently implemented as rootkits that subvert the operating system kernel and gain unauthorized access to the hardware, making them very powerful. A keylogger using this method can act as a keyboard device driver for example, and thus gain access to any information typed on the keyboard as it goes to the operating system. API-b ased: These keyloggers hook keyboard APIs; the operating system then notifies the keylogger each time a key is pressed and the keylogger simply records it. Windows APIs on such as GetAsyncKeyState(), GetForegroundWindow(), etc. are used to poll the state of the keyboard or to subscribe to keyboard events. [1] These types of keyloggers are the easiest to write, but where constant polling of each key is required, they can cause a noticeable increase in CPU usage, and can also miss the occasional key.A more recent example simply polls the BIOS for pre-boot authentication PINs that have not been cleared from memory. * Form grabbing based: Form grabbing-based keyloggers log web form submissions by recording the web browsing onsubmit event functions. This records form data before it is passed over the Internet and bypasses HTTPS encryption. * Packet analyzers: This involves capturing network traffic associated with HTTP POST events to retrieve unencrypted passwords. Remote access software keyloggersThese are local software keyloggers with an added feature that allows access to the locally recorded data from a remote location. Remote communication may be achieved using one of these methods: * Data is uploaded to a website, database or an FTP server. * Data is periodically emailed to a pre-defined email address. * Data is wirelessly transmitted by means of an attached hardware system. * The software enables a remote login to the local machine from the Internet or the local network, for data logs stored on the target machine to be accessed.Related features Software Keyloggers may be augmented with features that capture user information without relying on keyboard key presses as the sole input. Some of these features include: * Clipboard logging. Anything that has been copied to the clipboard can be captured by the program. * Screen logging. Screenshots are taken in order to capture graphics-based information. Applications with screen logging abilities may take screensh ots of the whole screen, just one application or even just around the mouse cursor.They may take these screenshots periodically or in response to user behaviours (for example, when a user has clicked the mouse). A practical application used by some keyloggers with this screen logging ability is to take small screenshots around where a mouse has just clicked; these defeat web-based keyboards (for example, the web-based screen keyboards that are often used by banks) and any web-based on-screen keyboard without screenshot protection. * Programmatically capturing the text in a control. The Microsoft Windows API allows programs to request the text value in some controls.This means that some passwords may be captured, even if they are hidden behind password masks (usually asterisks). * The recording of every program/folder/window opened including a screenshot of each and every website visited, also including a screenshot of each. REMOTE ADMINSTRATIVE TOOL(RAT) A remote administration tool (a RAT) is a piece of software that allows a remote operator to control a system as if he has physical access to that system. While desktop sharing and remote administration have many legal uses, RAT software is usually associated with criminal or malicious activity.Malicious RAT software is typically installed without the victims knowledge, often as payload of a Trojan horse, and will try to hide its operation from the victim and from security software. The operator controls the RAT through a network connection. Such tools provide an operator the following capabilities: * Screen/camera capture or image control * File management (download/upload/execute/etc. ) * Shell control (from command prompt) * Computer control (power off/on/log off if remote feature is supported) * Registry management (query/add/delete/modify) Other software product-specific functions Its primary function is for one computer operator to gain access to remote PCs. One computer will run the client software appl ication, while the other computer(s) operate as the host(s). CLICK-JACKING Clickjacking is possible because seemingly harmless features of HTML web pages can be employed to perform unexpected actions. A clickjacked page tricks a user into performing undesired actions by clicking on a concealed link. On a clickjacked page, the attackers load another page over it in a transparent layer.The users think that they are clicking visible buttons, while they are actually performing actions on the hidden page. The hidden page may be an authentic page, therefore the attackers can trick users into performing actions which the users never intended. There is no way of tracing such actions to the attackers later, as the users would have been genuinely authenticated on the hidden page. Clickjacking is possible because seemingly harmless features of HTML web pages can be employed to perform unexpected actions.A clickjacked page tricks a user into performing undesired actions by clicking on a conceal ed link. On a clickjacked page, the attackers load another page over it in a transparent layer. The users think that they are clicking visible buttons, while they are actually performing actions on the hidden page. The hidden page may be an authentic page, therefore the attackers can trick users into performing actions which the users never intended. There is no way of tracing such actions to the attackers later, as the users would have been genuinely authenticated on the hidden page.Examples A user might receive an email with a link to a video about a news item, but another valid page, say a product page on amazon. com, can be hidden on top or underneath the PLAY button of the news video. The user tries to play the video but actually buys the product from Amazon. Other known exploits include: * tricking users into enabling their webcam and microphone through Flash (which has since been corrected by Adobe); * tricking users into making their social networking profile information pub lic; * making users follow someone on Twitter; share links on Facebook SPAMS Email spam, also known as junk email or unsolicited bulk email (UBE), is a subset of electronic spam involving nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by email. Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk. One subset of UBE is UCE (unsolicited commercial email). The opposite of spam, email which one wants, is called ham, usually when referring to a messages automated analysis (such as Bayesian filtering). Email spam has steadily grown since the early 1990s.Botnets, networks of virus-infected computers, are used to send about 80% of spam. Since the expense of the spam is borne mostly by the recipient, it is effectively postage due advertising. The legal status of spam varies from one jurisdiction to another. In the United States, spam was declared to be legal by the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 provided the message adheres to certain specifications. ISPs h ave attempted to recover the cost of spam through lawsuits against spammers, although they have been mostly unsuccessful in collecting damages despite winning in court.Spammers collect email addresses from chatrooms, websites, customer lists, newsgroups, and viruses which harvest users address books, and are sold to other spammers. They also use a practice known as email appending or epending in which they use known information about their target (such as a postal address) to search for the targets email address. According to the Message Anti-Abuse Working Group, the amount of spam email was between 88–92% of email messages sent in the first half of 2010. PREVENTIVE MEASURES TO OVERCOME THE ATTACKS OF HACKERS KEYLOGGERSSCAN THE FILE WITH DR. WEB LINK CHECKERBEFORE DOWNLOADING. SCAN THE FILE WITH ONLINE MULTIPLE ANTI-VIRUS ENGINE IE. , www . novirusthanks org USE ANTI KEYLOGGERS LIKE ZEMANA,KEYSCRAMBERS ETC.. RATS STRICTLY FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS OF THE ANTI-VIRUS.. ALWAYS USE AN UPDATED ANTI-VIRUS. DONT DOWNLOAD ANY FILE FROM AN ANONYMOUS WEBSITE. PHISHING ALWAYS TYPE THE COMPLETE URL OF THE INTENDED WEBPAGE FOR LOGIN. USE ANTI-VIRUS WHICH HAS WEB BROWSER INTERGRATION FACILITY TO COMBAT PHISHING LIKE KASPERSKY ETC.. NEVER LOGIN IN ANY LINK WITHOUT VERIFING ITS AUTHENTICATION. SPAMSome Facebook users were fooled into verifying’ their account. Many Facebook walls were flooded with verify your/my account’ spam messages/wall posts. My advice to all Facebook users. To get rid of FB spams, do not click the link. As simple as that. Clicking the link will just cause you to become one of the spam victims. It will automatically post the same spam messages on different Facebook walls. CONCLUSION * Data Security is the means of ensuring that data is kept safe from corruption and that access to it is suitably controlled. * . The Internet is a scary place.Criminals have the ability to hide behind their computers, or even other people’s computers ,they attempt to break into computer to steal personal information or to use it for their own purposes. * So to protect your Data with a firewall so that you are not an easy target to hackers and viruses in the future * When you leave your house, you lock your doors to prevent robbery, why not use a firewall to put a lock on your computer. AUTHORS: G. VAMSHI KRISHNA A. K. A h4x0r le610n, Computer Science amp; Engineering, 4nd year B. Tech, WARANGAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY amp; SCIENCE.