A good old-fashioned bank robbery isn’t very popular nowadays. The bad guys don’t even need guns. They commit crimes from home with the help of the computer. Welcome to the world of technology where everything can get hacked.
Thirty years ago people were not thinking of cybersecurity. There were no wireless computers, mobile banking apps, Facebook, the cryptocurrency market, etc. An interesting fact is that the first virus, named Brain, was released a few years after International business machines corporation had introduced the first personal computer. The virus was written by two brothers from Pakistan. At that time, people from the United States and the United Kingdom were so shocked that their computers had a virus that they were calling directly to Pakistan demanding to disinfect their machines.
Nowadays users have different kinds of antivirus software. No one keeps track of the number of computer viruses. The world would be a great place if a random Internet virus was the only cybersecurity problem. At this point, there are a lot of cyber dangers such as crypto jacking, data breaches, and ransomware attacks. Hackers can steal users’ passwords and go through personal information including photos, emails, chats on WhatsApp, and bank details. More than that, they can attack the government, hack Tesla cars and home automation system. There is no safe place.
Even large corporations such as Google, Facebook, FedEx, Amazon or Wikipedia experience cyber attacks. Despite the amount of financial and human resources, they still can’t fully protect themselves. For instance, Sony’s PlayStation Network was attacked in 2011. The company was going through hell – the team of hackers stole the personal data of 77 million users. The list of data included customers’ names, passwords, credit cards numbers, and expiration dates. Needless to say, the users’ bank accounts had been illegally used. To appease disappointed customers the company paid compensation of 15 million dollars in total. Plus, they were in charge of refunding money that was stolen from all their customers. The experts call it the world’s largest cyber attack. Another important fact is that it was possible to avoid this incident. Sony decided to ignore a well-known network vulnerability and paid the price for it.
Hackers can also be different. Not everyone will go to attack government or political parties. Some hackers target celebrities and their Instagram profiles by using a flaw in the Instagram security system. In 2016, Selena Gomez’s Instagram was hacked. Unknown posted nude photos of Justin Bieber from her profile. The American singer had 125 million followers at that time.
Everyone can become a victim of a cyber attack. History shows that the consequences can be terrible. That’s why it is so important to spread the message about cybersecurity and what to do in order to avoid getting hacked. Hackers are evolving at the same speed as technology, so users should become more careful both online and offline. No one knows what can be worse – showing your nude pictures to the millions of people or pay off 15 million dollar debt.
If you want to learn more about cybersecurity and how to protect yourself, check out the infographic below, according to ServerMania:
