Cybersecurity in the New Modern Age: Protect What Is Important
Note: We interrupt our blog series on Genetic Modification to bring you this important post about cybersecurity, (and in so doing, illustrate the unpredictable and intrusive nature of cybercrime).
There's been plenty of mention of hacks, and data breaches of big corporations in the media, but should the average joe citizen be concerned? The truth is you are probably not nearly as afraid as you should be. Especially if you run a business, but even as an individual in our modern society, you must learn to protect yourself. This will become even more crucial as our society becomes more technologically advanced. If you are not following the recommended steps, it is quite possible you are an easy target.
What is the scope of the problem?
Our digital assets, cash or digital currency, documents and files, identity, credit, and even computing power are up for grabs in the cybercrime world, to be used or sold in the black market; to our detriment and someone else's gain. Large companies which we have placed our trust and personal assets in are at risk of being attacked, as are each of us as individuals. We have to be concerned about identity theft through phishing and password cracking, theft of currency or intellectual property, hijacking of our computer power for cryptocurrency mining, and probably the most well-funded and organized type of cyberattack - ransomware.
Ransomware is now the single biggest digital threat to our connected world, and increasing in the modern age. In the typical case, a computer or network is seized and held hostage until the owner/ administrator pays a specified ransom amount to the hacker to recover access or control. As the Fourth Industrial Revolution brings greater networking dependencies, the opportunity for wildfire-like spread of a cyberattack increases exponentially. This can affect critical institutions, such as hospitals or even utilities, including the power grid, unless important safeguards are put in place.
This ransomware phenomenon has evolved from a being a low-scale individual hacker or group, locking access to a person's home computer and demanding payment in bitcoin, to an enormous multi-billion dollar, international industry which can cripple a major enterprise. Large scale distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks, where a paralyzing volume of data is sent to intentionally flood a network, can wreck havoc in a service industry such as healthcare. Internet-driven criminal activity may be state-sponsored, or run by large crime organizations.
These industries (if you will) have the skills and capacity to conduct extensive research and analysis, execute niche or institution specific targeted attacks, and even provide ransomware-for-hire or ransomware-as-a-service - as per Rick Vanouver of Veeam. Criminals can apparently purchase your personal information, or cyber attack solutions on the dark web, like placing an order on Amazon. Unfortunately, this operation is too large and profitable to be eliminated or dealt with through a single avenue alone. If you have time, check out this video from First Documentary posted on YouTube, which gives an in - depth expose of this issue.
Phishing is a more well-recognized scheme nowadays as there has been a large campaign to educate the public, by companies whose customers may have been duped. In this scheme the attacker sets up an email or website, which resembles, or is identical that of a trusted company and prompts the victim to enter their credentials or send other personal information. Then the malicious hacker has access to information which can be used to withdraw funds, if it is a bank impersonation, or setup other accounts, etc. If people use the same password information to enter other accounts, the hacker may be able to access the users other accounts as well.
Viruses are well known to infect the computer in ways which can disrupt functionality, shut down the computer, or transmit information back to the malicious hacker, such as passwords, etc.
Theft of computing power through cryptocurrency mining has become more popular lately, due to the rising value of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. In this scenario, your computer is quietly hijacked and used by an unauthorized system to perform power intensive calculations in order to mine cryptocurrency for the financial benefit of the attacker. These activities can help transmit malware, consume electricity, memory and processing power, which can ultimately crash the computer, as per Steemit. Surprisingly, cryptocurrency mining malware can also occur on smartphones, with adverse affects as per Bitcoinist.
Malware, containing ransomware, or other viruses. can enter your digital life insidiously through advertising in your browser or Flash Player, clicking links on the internet, social media, your internet of things connected devices, and of course the classic route of email attachments. There may even be Trojan horses in the midst of your system which can lie dormant and affect backup systems. This latter technique is particularly ominous. You have to be aware of the myriad routes of entry, or the weak links in your security chain. It doesn't matter if you have a pc, Mac, Android or Linux system, desktop or mobile, anti-virus software alone is not enough.
What can you do to protect yourself?
To continue reading this blog post, please check us out on Patreon. You will be able to read the entire post, and if you enjoy these posts, also consider becoming a patron. Thank you for your attention! Feel free to check our our older blog posts, and we hope you join our community.