Summer, sun and sweet sins are something that most people associate with happiness and innocent fun. Not many think about hackers and computer spies when the sky is cloudless and one is working outdoors with the laptop, whether one is lying in the park, sitting at the cafeteria, or relaxing at the holiday residence. But the thieves do not go on vacation! And there are plenty of sinners under the sun.

Many people like to work wireless. Most of them are aware of the dangers of IT criminality and have installed proper protection against viruses and other malicious code at work. But unfortunately, Internet security is often neglected during summer holidays, and many people tend to forget that hackers and spies do not necessarily take vacations.

The same way that regular thieves are looking forward to empty houses every Easter, the Internet criminals are looking forward to unsecured networks in the summertime. The New Scientist magazine recently published an article saying that around 70 % of all company networks neglect to encrypt their information. The result may be that users who have remote access to the organization's network while they are on holiday, can make the job a lot simpler for potential hackers and computer spies.

American surveys show that even the most cautious IT administrators at work, can be quite sloppy when it comes to protecting home users' computers and wireless networks. The users are not adequately informed about the dangers of wireless networks and mobile devices, and the need to keep home computers updated the same way as enterprise computers. The American cyber company Cyber-Defence has found a dramatic increase in the number of so called brute force attacks. These are attacks where the hackers try to enter your system by sending a lot of random combinations, in the hope that one of the combinations may be what is needed so that they can gain access. One IT administrator checking his home log discovered more than 1000 attempts of this kind of attacks made during the lastest 30 days.

Recent surveys from National High Tech Crime Unit show that more than 80 % of all larger enterprises were exposed to some kind of computer attack in 2003. And contrary to what many people might think, the threat does not always come from the outside. An unhappy employee or a former employee may be potential risk factors for the company. A recent British report states that almost one third of all British companies have experienced attacks from the inside.

The latest trends clearly show that it is definitely not advisable to go on vacation without necessary protection because hackers and computer criminals do no take holidays from their activities. We are witnessing more sophisticated malware and the intentions of the hackers are getting more serious with economic incentives. Spy activity, identity theft and keyboard monitoring are only some of the dangers that you might be exposed to. Not to mention what could happen when you come back to the office and connect to the company’s network. If your PC is infected, you can easily infect the whole company network.

The biggest problem with wireless working during summer holiday is probably that you do not have the possibility of upgrading your antivirus program from the company network. Antivirus programs are the most necessary protection tool and you should make sure that you get your program updated during the holiday.

You should also be careful as to where you leave your portable devices. Remember that it is easy to steal a little memory stick and even easier to forget it.