They can also turn off your antivirus protection without your knowledge, leaving you even more vulnerable.
#SHOULD I DISABLE ADD ONS ON COMPUTER PC#
Once that happens, they can run malware on your PC without you knowing it. This is a very common weakness, where a data input uses up more space than it’s given, so it spills over into different locations, causing an app to crash or giving cyber attackers a way into your PC.īuffer overflow is also a method that cybercriminals can use to gain administrator right to your system.
#SHOULD I DISABLE ADD ONS ON COMPUTER SOFTWARE#
In order to take advantage of this flaw to infiltrate your PC, an attacker will have to gain access to the flaw and have the capability to exploit it.Īn example of a software vulnerability is buffer overflow. You’ll hear and read a lot about them, so it’s time you found out what they really are.ĭefinition: A software vulnerability is a weakness found in a piece of software (application) or in an operating system that can cause security issues. This can also happen to your smartphone.Īnd mind my words: this is not an unlikely scenario. Fast forward a couple of minutes (or less, if you don’t have that many files), and all your data is encrypted, while attackers await their ransom to give you the decryption key. And they find these backdoors a lot more often than you can imagine.įor example, here’s how ransomware can exploit security holes in your outdated browsers/apps to infiltrate your PC:Īll it takes is clicking on an infected link in a spam email that will redirect you (invisibly) to an infected website, where the ransomware will be downloaded from. Not in the sense that they’ll turn into weapons of cyber attack overnight, but in the way that they’ll become vulnerable to attack.Ĭybercriminals frequently and automatically scan websites and PCs with different types of malware to see if there are any vulnerabilities they can use to penetrate that website or system. And, just like an uncleaned fridge may start to smell at some point, some of these apps can go bad as well. A messy desktop can be the sign you need to get on with digital spring cleaning.Ĭurious by nature, us Internet users have turned into digital hoarders, installing apps and all kinds of software that would make our work easier, faster or our lives more fun. Then you may have some work to do behind the scenes. Seriously now, if it were a real show, probably over 70% of Internet users (personal estimate) would be contenders for “who has the most apps installed.” I don’t have an official statistic for it, but if your desktop looks like this:
On today’s episode of „Digital Hoarders”, I share how we can all make our PCs more organized and less insecure.