However, as with many opportunities, this one is also fraught with peril, according to officials at the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Just as in street crime, law enforcement folks can't be everywhere at once on the net. Most DoD computers are configured in a local area network and access to one part of the system would give a hacker total access to the network. This makes it easier for a hacker to disrupt a single computer or the entire network, according to Burtt. She said certain hacker programs have been developed to run on a Windows NT platform and, if installed with certain plug-ins, are nearly impossible to detect.
Home computers are also at risk.
Most neighborhood cable networking systems look like one big, local area network. A hacker could gain full access into this system, Burtt said. The most common way hackers contaminate a user's computer is by electronic mail. Mail bombs, password sniffers and spoofing are tools used to invade, destroy and retrieve information. Spoofers disguise one computer to electronically resemble another computer to gain access to a restricted system.