NORAZMAN 4 SN 2 Introduction The word hacker is other word for a person who is enjoys breaking into user’s files whether for funs, to show their knowledge or they are interest to accessed files or data according to Taylor (1999). While Marotta gave a negative scenery to hacker as person who takes whatever he wants. Himanen defines hacker as a person who always doing illegal activities. History of Hackers The first generation of hacking was made of experts of computer programming who never stopped improving their skills then misuse them. The second generation was made of computer hardware developers who found hacking and accessing data and information for free as an appealing idea. The third generation included developers of games architecture. The fourth generation includes any person who has a computer and some knowledge of programming. Effect of Hacking To individual: will get frustration and fear to use devices. To communities: will face the increase in cost of living due to repairs and modification of their home computers. To countries: will lose in term of revenue involve millions of dollars from the hacker’s illegal activities. To world: there will a crisis to all communications among states and some, there will be a cold war when other state securities system has been break trough. How to Protect Go to windowsupdate.microsoft.com at least once a week and install all critical patches. Run an antivirus program at least once a week. Use a firewall such as Zone Alarm. Don't click on email attachments. Don't install any software from an unknown source, its maybe has the hidden virus. Turn off sharing, especially on your C:\ and D:\ drive. This is very dangerous! If you must share a disk, make sure it requires a password. Put a good password on your PC. Don’t use easy password likes'12345', your name, and otherwise. Report any network slowness or strange computer behavior so it can be checked by network securities. Windows PCs with static IP numbers are especially easy targets. You should always set "Obtain an IP address automatically" in Windows unless you are running a server and you are knowledgeable in computer security. Conclusion Hackers are responsible to the enormous development in computer and internet technologies. Hackers have different opinions and motivation. Hacking has been and still a disease to different societies and even states suffers from. This discussion to provide users with knowledge regarding the effects of hacking to society and how society respond and try to solve or minimise these kind of attacks. Reference