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Lesson 7 - Hardware and Software Theft, Vandalism and Failure

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346 views3 pages

Lesson 7 - Hardware and Software Theft, Vandalism and Failure

Uploaded by

Jambres Delacruz
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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LESSON 7 ARDWARE AND SOFTWARE THEFT, VANDALISM AND FAILURE

SOFTWARE THEFT

Software theft occurs when someone steals software media, intentionally erases programs, illegally
registers and/or activates a program, or illegally copies a program.

• Physically stealing software.


• Intentionally erasing software.
• Illegal registration/activation
• Illegal copying
Software piracy, often referred to simply as piracy, is the unauthorized and illegal duplication of
copyrighted software. Piracy is the most common form of software theft.

Safeguards against Software Theft

Many manufacturers incorporate an activation process into their programs to ensure the software is not
installed on more computers than legally licensed. During the product activation, which is conducted
either online or by phone, users provide the software product’s identification number to associate the
software with the computer or mobile device on which the software is installed.

To further protect themselves from software piracy, software manufacturers issue users license agreements.
A license agreement is the right to use software. The most common type of license included with software
purchased by individual users is a single-user license agreement, also called an end-user license
agreement (EULA).

A network license is a legal agreement that allows multiple users to access the software on the server
simultaneously. A site license is a legal agreement that permits users to install the software on multiple
computers — usually at a volume discount.

INFORMATION THEFT

Information theft occurs when someone steals personal or confidential information. Both business and
home users can fall victim to information theft.

Safeguards against Information Theft

Most organizations will attempt to prevent information theft by implementing the user identification and
authentication controls.

• Encryption is the process of converting data that is readable by humans into encoded characters to
prevent unauthorized access. To read the data, the recipient must decrypt, or decode it.
In the encryption process, the unencrypted, readable data is called plaintext. The encrypted
(scrambled) data is called ciphertext. An encryption algorithm, or cypher, is a set of steps that
can convert readable plaintext into unreadable ciphertext.

Encryption programs typically use more than one encryption algorithm, along with an encryption
key. An encryption key is a set of characters that the originator of the data uses to encrypt the
plaintext and the recipient of the data uses to decrypt the ciphertext.

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Two basic types of encryption are private key and public key.

o With private key encryption, also called symmetric key encryption, both the originator and
the recipient use the same secret key to encrypt and decrypt the data.

o Public key encryption, also called asymmetric key encryption, uses two encryption keys: a
public key and a private key. Public key encryption software generates both the private key
and the public key. A message encrypted with a public key can be decrypted only with
the corresponding private key, and vice versa.

Mobile users today often access their company networks through a virtual private network. A virtual
private network (VPN) provides the mobile user with a secure connection to the company network
server, as if the user has a private line.

• Digital Signatures and Certificates


A digital signature is an encrypted code that a person, website, or organization attaches to an
electronic message to verify the identity of the message sender. A digital certificate is a notice that
guarantees a user or a website is legitimate.

A website that uses encryption techniques to secure its data is known as a secure site.
HARDWARE THEFT, VANDALISM, AND FAILURE

Hardware theft is the act of stealing digital equipment.


Hardware vandalism involves defacing or destroying digital
equipment. Hardware can fail for a variety of reasons: aging
hardware, natural or man-made disasters, or random events
such as electrical power problems, and even errors in programs
or apps.

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