Noel Whitaker Computers have become man's primary tool for work in the twenty-first century, becoming a basic

part of many daily lives and replacing many of the jobs and tools of man. What started as simple logic machines have changed into machines capable of combining and managing technologies which were once thought to be completely separate. The world has changed dramatically with as these machines have advanced and humans have become more and more dependent on their function for normal industrialized human society to continue. These almost magical machines which have made life easier for so many, have flaws just like their creators and it is has become painfully evident that there are those who are willing to exploit these imperfections for a variety of reasons. Although one may argue all human creations reflect their creators and have a degree of error, computers are taking such a large role in human life that these errors can no longer be overlooked and can have dire consequences when exploited for immoral purposes. The act of exploiting errors in computer systems is commonly referred to as computer hacking derived from the verb "hack" which the Merriam Webster Dictionary defines as "to cut or sever with repeated irregular or unskilful blows". This hacking is limited to the two main components which make up a computer. The first being its software which is the conveying of the human desires into a language the computer can use. The second being the hardware which performs the physical calculations and actions needed by the software to function. These components both can have human error, but the software component is much more prone due to the complex nature of the systems which make mistakes much easier to make by the human programmers. There exist physical hacks to hardware, but software hacks are much more common due to the easy nature of programming. An amateur can program so a computer performs the desired functions, but an expert can take advantage of any mistakes made in the programming of the amateur. There are businesses now built upon the sale of software which protects its users from malicious software or others who would exploit known weaknesses in the basic operation system of the computer. There are many different types of hacking, but they must be differentiated from social engineering methods which don't even use exploits in programming code. An example of a social engineering method is attempting to get someone to enter in their private information such as account name and password into a false website which appears legitimate. This type of method is referred to as "phishing". Emails may be sent which resemble a legitimate company's email containing a link which may download and install undesired software on an unsuspecting victim's computer. Software which is used in an malicious manner such as to gather information on the user or to interrupt the behavior of needed programs is referred to as "malware". This malware comes in many different formats and serves many different purposes. These include, but are not limited to things such a computer viruses, worms or trojan