Computer users often dismiss Internet security best practices because they find them inconvenient, or because they think the rules don’t apply to them. Many cling to the misguided belief that because they don’t bank or shop online, that bad guys won’t target them. The next time you hear this claim, please refer the misguided person to this blog post, which attempts to examine some of the more common — yet often overlooked — ways that cyber crooks can put your PC to criminal use. The graphic above (click it for a larger version) shows the different reasons criminals may want access to your system. I’ve explained each category in more detail below: Illicit Web Hosting Cyber criminals commonly use hacked PCs as a host for a variety of dodgy Web hosting schemes, including: – Spam Web sites – Phishing Web sites – Malware download sites – “Warez” servers, or hosts