Unauthorized access

Unauthorized access is an act of illegally gaining access into any computer, network etc, or promoting such activity. "Access" in relation to any computer system, means instruct, communicate with, store data in, retrieve data from, or otherwise make use of any of the resources of the computer system.

Computer eaves dropping and hacking can both be considered forms of the general term unauthorized computer access. Computer hacking is the accessing of a computer system without the express or implied permission of the owner of that computer system.

This may include using sophisticate hacking/cracking software tools to gain illegal access to a system or it could simply be a case of a person guessing a password and gaining access.

Computers can be the target of a criminal activity, a storage place for data about a criminal activity and/or the actual tool used to commit a crime (planning criminal activity).

At present, the access control technologies including firewalls are commonly used to prevent unauthorized access, but some specific way of access cannot be stopped by the access control technologies. Nowadays, installing Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) coupled with firewalls, and monitoring networks enables us to quickly detect and react to unauthorized access.
Unauthorized access