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Technology

How to avoid Hacking

Hacking: Getting unauthorized access to data that is not public for ill use or personal benefits.

Hackers: the people who hack into the computers.

Cyber: “of, relating to, or involving computers or computer networks (such as the Internet) the cyber marketplace” (Webster dictionary)

Warfare: Is a conflict using or targeting computer

Hacking is a term used for accessing the data through skills. It is illegal but has benefits socioeconomic benefits for the hackers. The hackers access to classified data of the state, company, or individual and steal personal, company’s or the state’s important data.

Hackers: competent computer Hackers are the people with expert computer skills who remain afar access the information on the computers of individuals or agencies.

Cyber: It is related to computers and internet

Cyberwarfare is the conflict or war targeting computers within the country or the organizations in other countries to damage the computers, networks, delete the data, steal it or sell it to earn money or defeat the competing companies.

Ransomware: a malware that restricts access to the file or computer and demands payment

Malware: Malicious software that infects the computer

Phishing: Fake emails, messages, and websites that look like authentic

Spyware: Software to collect personal information

The man in the middle: The hacker alters the communication between two people

Keylogging: Records keystrokes

Botnets: malware that infects the computer without the computer owner’s knowledge

These are the various techniques using which the hackers can attack the computers and data on the computers. With advancement in the technology, many new techniques are introduced to hack and steal information from the people. In ransomware a message pop-ups when a user opens their computer to deny their access to the computer and demanding for payment to get access. The malware infects computers and damages data saved in computers. It also steals information and sends emails on the company’s or person’s behalf. Phishing or spoofing is the fake emails that appear authentic and steal information from the people. Spyware collect personal data without consent or being visible to the owner of the computer. It is a software which gets installed on the computer with free installation programs that are downloaded. The man in the middle is a technique through which the hacker goes in the middle of two parties to hack the information. They can lead and alter the conversation to get information. In key Logging, every keystroke is recorded, and the activities of the users are recorded with each stroke using software that records the strokes and the information. Bonnets is a network of private computers infected with malicious software and controlled as a group without the owners’ knowledge, e.g., to send spam. There is others type of hacking techniques which are not mentioned here, and the number of techniques is increasing as people get remedies for the old hacking techniques.

For Fun

For experimenting with their skills

To damage the reputation

For monetary gains

Some people do it for fun, and others are interested in testing their computer skills. They want to know how real hacking and the threats related to it are. However, some malicious people do it for monetary gain. To impersonate others and access their credit cards or tax returns. Big companies do it to damage their competitors or create problems for them. In some instances, they use their data and plans to get projects.

To create problems for the competitors

To get information

To Steal

Some countries use hacking to get information about other countries and companies so that they know what other companies are up to and whether they are a threat to their security or not. Therefore, the purposes can vary from person to person and company to company. But the heinous ones are those where people use hacking to stain the reputation of other companies or individuals. They do not seek money; they only want to damage the reputation of the person in the society.

It is a problem because

It can affect anyone

The threat to the privacy

Damages reputation of companies or individuals

Identity theft

Financial fraud

Hacking is a problem because the target can be anyone. People cannot be at peace because it was someone else. It makes everyone vulnerable. The hackers can target anyone. It is a threat to the privacy of the computer users. Unknown people trolling and getting information about you is discomforting and creates problems. It enhances insecurity and anxiety among people. It decreases privacy making people vulnerable in the hands of the hackers who stay behind the computers. The hackers can also use the obtained information to damage the reputation of the company of individuals. They can change the facts and bring forth the secrets of a company and individuals. Moreover, some of the hackers can you the identity to attack others or gain monetary benefits by applying for tax returns or health insurances. They can use the personal information for fraudulent activities that hamper the person and might indulge in the criminal activities. Many companies loss important information to the hackers that can create problems for the employees or company. For instance, Sony paid around $14 million to the former employees because the hackers distributed the email and other personal information of the employees in 2014. Targeting personal information such as credit card and tax returns is a way to avail financial opportunities.

Loss of information (200,000 people Equifax)

The threat to the intellectual property

Security Threat

Damage to property

Financial losses

Loss of information is a serious threat to people using hacking techniques. In 2017, 200,000 employees and former employees lost their social security number, passport numbers, credit card numbers, email addresses, names, birthdates, tax ID numbers, home addresses, phone numbers, driver license number and other personal information to the hackers. It leads to crimes using the personal information of these people. Moreover, the hackers are a threat to the intellectual property.

The hackers can access the private unfinished work of creative innovators and hack their products and damage the property to publish the work online or sell it to the competitors. Like Sony, many other companies, such as Equifax, have lost a huge amount of money in settling cases related to internet security.

Here are some famous cases of Hacking in the US

Morris worm 1988 (affected 6000 computers costing $10-100m)

Mafiaboy 2000 (attacked commercial websites cost 1.2 b)

Stole millions of credit card details (2009)

In 2013 attack on Yahoo

Tappan Morris created the first virus that caused 10-100 million dollars. He was then a student at Cornel University. His virus replicated and damaged computers. Mafiaboy was a DDoS attack by a 15-years old which affected websites such as eBay, Yahoo, Amazon, CNN, and others. In 2009 Albert Gonzalez stole more than 130 million credit card details, and he was formerly working with the US government. He staged the one of the biggest identity theft in 2009 from banks and payment systems. Similarly in 2013 one billion user accounts were stolen from Yahoo. It includes personal information, phone numbers, credit card information and others. These were the only glimpse of the threats of cyber attacks. Many companies lost billions of dollars in 2016 and 2017.

WannaCry: Attack health service providers

Petya?Notpetya: infected networks in Multiple countries

Wikileaks: stole 8761 documents from CIA

Attack on global banks 2015 (£650 M)

WannaCry ransomware debilitated the health system in the UK for almost a month. Most of the machines and computers could not work, and it pushed backed the health services to the times of manual data entries and services. Petya/Not Petya was better than wanna cry and affected US pharmaceutical company along with many other companies in various countries. The attack affected Ukraine the most. Wikileaks created a lot of controversies because it disclosed classified information from CIA regarding spying and operations.

In 2015, Russian hackers used malware to infiltrate banks and stole £650 million from 100 institutions from around the world. These cases are a few examples of the famous attacks that caused billions of financial losses to companies. As you can infer from the cases all kind of institutions can be the target whether it is a financial institute or a health care system. The hackers only focus on the benefits, and they do it to damage and monetary gains in most of the cases. Therefore, it becomes an ethical concern for people.

Stealing

Threatening

Destroying

It is a serious problem because it poses a threat to the property of individuals and companies. The individuals work hard to save money but using credit card information the hackers steal their money. Similarly, they damage a company’s property and data for personal gain. It is ethically wrong to steal or damage other people’s property. It is unethical to troll people’s emails and messages; it is unethical to access the emails and other data without consent. It is also unethical to threaten and damage the reputation of the people to take revenge or stain the reputation of the company.

As you can see this is the record of major data breaches that affected various companies globally. The data provided present the major data breaches since 2007 to Oct 2017. Identity theft was the cause of 50 percent of these breaches making it the most common way of hacking security threat. JP Morgan Chase affected 76 million households. The data for 76 million households were stolen. Similarly, friends finder Network Inc. lost data of 412 million people.

However, the highest data lost was faced by Yahoo. The revelation of December 2016 showed around 3000 million families were affected by the data loss.

The victims of the attacks can bear severe legal consequences for

Theft

Fraud

Forgery

Intellectual Property

Hackers use personal information of other people the hackers can commit theft, fraud and other crimes. These crimes can cause legal consequences for the victims because the hackers use their information to commit crimes. They use the information for forgery.  Moreover, it is a serious threat to the intellectual property of the innovative or creative people.

The graph shows the worldwide average annual cost of cybercrimes in a million US dollars. For instance, cybercrimes have cost hospitality industry an average of 5.04 million US dollar worldwide, and it is the industry with the least attacks by cybercriminals. Other industries such as education, transportations are affected hugely.

The most affected industries are financial services industries with the loss of 18.28 million US dollars to the hackers or cybercriminals but it is average annual costs. One industry every year suffers millions of dollars to the cyber-attacks which are a huge amount of money.

This graph shows the total cost that an organization incurs after a cyber-attack and data breach. It includes the cost of settling the lawsuits if the employees demand from the company for publicly sharing their personal information and the settling the problems in the business that the data breached caused. In 2017, the average cost of data breaches was 7.35 US millions dollars. In that amount of money, a new small set up could have been established, but the data breaches cost the companies an enormous amount of money.

The graph shows data breaches in the US by industry. It is obvious from the graph that in the US businesses and medical healthcare industry suffers most of the breaches. It is heinous because these people are already suffering due to their health problems but the hackers are targeting them makes them vulnerable socially and economically. Therefore, it is important to improve security measures.

As you can see from the graph the number of incidents is increasing rapidly with the advancement and accessibility of the internet and computers, and the incidents are increasing as well. Therefore, it is crucial to come up with techniques to be secure from the attacks. Otherwise, it can have serious health problems in the form of stress and depressions.

Use HTTPS instead of HTTP

Use Strong Password

Never save your passwords on the device

Use two-step verification

These are some of the techniques to avoid being attacked or even if attacked to be safe from damages. Https is safe compared to HTTP so always use HTTPs instead of HTTP because of its inscription. The online data is safe. The password must be strong a weak password is easy to guess, and the hackers would not be able to discern a strong password easily. And never save your passwords online because it makes it easier for the attackers to access the password. Using two-step verification makes it difficult for the criminals because each time before logging in code is sent to a trusted device and it is workable for 60 seconds. Due to which it becomes difficult for the attacker to access Gmail or other accounts. Phishing emails usually have poor grammar and links that lead the user to malicious sites.

Do not use public Wi-Fi

Beware of extensions and popups

Install Anti-Virus

Update the security system of the companies

Also, using public Wi-Fi makes the user vulnerable to attacks because the attacker could also be using the same Wi-Fi or it might be set up by the hackers to trap the users. Therefore, public Wi-Fi must be avoided. Similarly, pop ups and extensions are sometimes malicious due to which they might damage computers and data. Installing an antivirus and scheduling regular cleaning would help the users to be secure. Thus these steps are crucial to being safe and secure in the world surrounded by constant makeup.

Lastly, the student can learn ethical hacking that benefits the society

The teaching can focus on responsibility and honesty.

It is essential for the educational institutes to produce students who are responsible and honest. Although it might be difficult schools are meant to teach the basic humanity along with technical expertise. Therefore, the teachers must focus on the ethical hacking.

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