The process of copying critical files to another device or location to protect against the loss of data in the event of a file-destroying virus, loss, or physical trauma to a computer.
banner ads
Can be either a legitimate advertisement on a web page or a misleading ad designed to get the user to click it thinking it is part of the web page or a Windows dialog box.
bit
Short for "binary unit" (or binary digit); this is single digit of information, which is a 1 or 0.
blog
Short for web log, a website on which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order.
bot
Programs that install themselves on people's computers for malicious purposes, often used as remote-attack tools to allow a hacker to gain control over your computer.
bot army
Thousands of computers that have been taken over by hackers remotely, typically to anonymously conduct distributed denial-of-service attacks.
broadband
A term used to describe high-speed Internet service. The term comes from the fact that a broad range of frequencies are used to attain high information-exchange rates.
browser
A program used to access content on the Internet. Examples include Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape, and Opera.
brute-force attack
Defeating password or encrypted data by successively trying a large number of possibilities (for example, exhaustively trying password combinations using a dictionary attack program).
byte
A standard-size "chunk" of computer language or network information. A byte is made of 8 bits.
