Page 20 - Computer Terms

What Is A Technical Support Scam?

Difficulty: Medium

A technical support scam, often abbreviated to a tech support scam, is a deceptive activity that uses intentional false positives to convince users that their computers have problems when they actually don't.

What Is A Brute-Force Attack?

Difficulty: Medium

A brute-force attack is a type of cyberattack where the attacker repeatedly submits large numbers of passwords in the hope of discovering the correct password.

What Is Ciphertext?

Difficulty: Medium

Ciphertext is text that has been scrambled into random numbers, letters, and symbols by a cipher in order to make it unreadable if intercepted by anyone.

What Is A CAPTCHA?

Difficulty: Medium

Stands for Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers And Humans Apart. A CAPTCHA is a security feature designed to prevent spam or abuse from automated bots.

What Is A Browser Hijacker?

Difficulty: Medium

A browser hijacker is a type of malware that changes a browser's settings, appearance, theme, or behaviour without the user's permission.

What Is A Botnet?

Difficulty: Medium

A botnet is a network of hijacked computers infected with malware that are controlled by a single attacking party to carry out cyberattacks and other malicious activities, like bringing servers down by DDoS attacks.

What Is Catfishing?

Difficulty: Medium

Catfishing is the process of setting up a fake online profile to deceive other people, most commonly on social networking sites and dating sites.

What Is A Logic Bomb?

Difficulty: Medium

A logic bomb is a piece of malicious code designed to carry out instructions when specific conditions are met. Logic bombs can be inserted into malware.

What Is Decryption?

Difficulty: Medium

Decryption is the process of converting encrypted information back into its original plaintext form. It is the opposite of encryption.

What Is Shoulder Surfing?

Difficulty: Easy

Shoulder surfing is the practice of looking over someone's shoulder to steal their sensitive information, including passwords, card numbers, and PIN numbers.

What Is A Drive-By Download?

Difficulty: Medium

A drive-by download is a vulnerability which unknowingly downloads and installs things on a computer without the user's permission or knowledge.

What Is Malvertising?

Difficulty: Medium

Malvertising is the use of online advertising to spread malware or other unwanted software. Malvertisements infect systems with malware by embedding malicious links or code into them.

What Is Pharming?

Difficulty: Medium

Pharming is the practice of redirecting a user to a fake website that mimics the appearance of a legitimate one to collect personal information, like usernames, passwords, and bank details.

What Is Social Engineering?

Difficulty: Medium

Social engineering is the use of deception tactics to get a user to give away their sensitive information, like usernames, passwords, and bank details, which may be used for fraudulent purposes.

What Is Rogue Security Software?

Difficulty: Medium

Rogue security software is a type of malware that tricks users into thinking they have viruses or malware on their computers when they actually don't and misleads them with fake detections and alerts.

What Is Scareware?

Difficulty: Medium

Scareware is a type of malware designed to scare users into downloading and installing unwanted and often malicious software that is of little to no use to them.

What Is Two-Factor Authentication?

Difficulty: Medium

Two-factor authentication (2FA), also known as two-step verification, or dual-factor authentication, is an electronic authentication method that requires two forms of verification before signing in.

What Is Cyberbullying?

Difficulty: Easy

Cyberbullying is a form of bullying that happens electronically over the internet or on a mobile phone. Whilst cyberbullying can take place between...

What Is Riskware?

Difficulty: Medium

Riskware describes software that is not strictly malicious, but poses potential security risks due to software incompatibilities, security holes, or legal violations.

What Is A Backdoor?

Difficulty: Medium

A backdoor is a security vulnerability that allows an attacker to gain unauthorised remote access to the victim's computer without their permission or knowledge and bypass normal security mechanisms.

What Is A Rootkit?

Difficulty: Medium

A rootkit is a type of malware designed to give someone root or administrator-level access to a computer system without the user's permission or knowledge.

What Is A Computer Worm?

Difficulty: Medium

A computer worm is a type of malware that automatically spreads itself over a network and infects other computers without any interaction from the creators.

What Is A Zero-Day Vulnerability?

Difficulty: Medium

A zero-day vulnerability, also known as a zero-day flaw, or a zero-day threat, is a security hole in a software program, operating system, website, web browser, hardware, or firmware, that...

What Is A Keylogger?

Difficulty: Medium

A keylogger is a type of spyware that records all keystrokes the user makes and sends that data to a third party. Keyloggers can record sensitive information, like usernames, passwords and bank details.

What Is Adware?

Difficulty: Medium

Adware is a type of malware that displays unwanted ads on the victim's computer, often in their web browser, to generate revenue for the creator.

What Is Spyware?

Difficulty: Medium

Spyware is a type of malware that is designed to secretly monitor the victim's activity, gather information about them, and send it to a third party without their permission.

What Is Malware?

Difficulty: Easy

Malware is specifically designed to harm a computer system. It is created with malicious intent to steal data, gain unauthorised access to...

What Is A Trojan Horse?

Difficulty: Medium

A Trojan horse, often shortened to a Trojan, is a type of malware that disguises itself as a safe and legitimate program when it actually performs malicious tasks.

What Is Ransomware?

Difficulty: Medium

Ransomware is a type of malware that blocks access to a computer system or files until a sum of money is paid. Ransomware may encrypt your personal files so that...

What Is A Computer Mouse?

Difficulty: Easy

A computer mouse is a basic and widely used handheld input device used to control the pointer on the screen in order to directly interact with a graphical user interface (GUI).