a security back door is a very dangerous thing in the world of software. Most people probably do not even know what that means but if you make your living creating software or protecting computer systems then you know very well what a back door is. It is a hole in the software that is put there intentionally by the person who created it. Sometimes the hole is put there for legitimate reasons and at other times the holes is put there maliciously. Let’s have a discussion on how dangerous of a hole a back door in the software is and how you can tell if the software that you installed on your computer system has one.

A back door explained in a little more detail

While we gave you a little bit more detail on what a back door is earlier on in the article, I feel as we should explain it a little bit more for the people who have never had exposure to the term before. A back door is less of a hole and more like a piece of code that only the creator of the software knows that it is there. This code allows you to have access to the software after it has been deployed somewhere else. You are able to get different pieces of information about the status of the software. Some of that information is related to the users system that the software is now installed on. Sometimes, if the software is built by a team of people, only one person on the team might know that the code is there. While most large software teams have code reviews to check and see if something like this is happening, the process is not one hundred percent fool proof. As we said before, some companies place the back door on their software on purpose. This is either because they use it as a security measure to help the client or they are required to by the government. Sometimes the government feels that if a piece of software has too much power then they need a way to get in. You would be surprised at some of the software that has a government sponsored back door in it.

The security implications of a back door in software

It is probably obvious to you why a back door in you software could be a problem. At anytime, the creator of the software that you installed has access to your system. You can never know if the person has good intentions or bad. And it doesn’t matter; nobody should have access to your computer unless they have your permission. Another way that a back door can hurt you is the fact that if it is found by a black hat hacker then they now have access to a very serious security hole in your system. Even if the back door was placed in there by the company for good intentions, the fact that the hackers have found it can mean trouble to you.

If you want to know if your software has a back door in it, try to look it up in Google. Most people do not have the expertise to examine their software themselves. If you hear about problems with a back door then it might be best to uninstall it.

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