If you think corona is the only invisible virus around, you need to look more closely. Same is the case when you are surfing the internet. You can never be too sure that you are safe! Hacking techniques are getting more sophisticated in 2022 and hackers are getting closer to you!
Read below techniques that will make you to think twice before creating a simple password or before sharing your details publicly on a social website.
Social Engineering- Am I your friend?
Hackers are getting personal. The most-common and least-understood hacking technique is social engineering. Hackers use many ways of this technique to get victims to give up their own information rather than directly stealing it. This is also by far the hardest hacking technique to protect yourself from, as any digital account can be breached by it. Its a trap you are most likely to fall into. In basic terms, social engineering uses tricks and psychological tactics to make someone do something to compromise their own security.
Phishing is one of the most used types. Hackers will send e-mails or even mobile sms's posing as someone in a position of trust. They’ll then attempt to lead the prey into handing over their own data. Commonly, these dubious people claim to be contacting you from a bank or company you’re familiar with, aiming to get your personal account details. When hackers send emails, they send in thousands of numbers and get atleast 1 percent success rate, hence the number of people falling prey is substantial.
Piggybacking is another type of social engineering that requires physical contact with the target. Hackers generally use piggybacking to gain access to physical systems in several ways. One method is to claim they have lost their login for a system and ‘borrow’ the victim’s ID. Another method hackers use to attack is to ask to borrow a specific item of equipment like a laptop, then they quickly and quietly install malicious softwares.
One other type, similar to phishing is baiting that often offers the victim something they really want, rather than claiming to be a trusted source or playing on fear.
Viruses, malwares, worms and other Malicious softwares
The common type of hacking that has evolved more and will be more evident are viruses, worms, or other malware. Malware is an overall word used to identify the software installed on someone’s system with malicious intent. There are various types of malware because this type of software has been in evolving for as long as computers have existed.
A virus is another kind of malware that relies on the victim accidentally activating the infected file themselves. Viruses are often downloaded from shady websites, usually by novices on the internet. Once installed, they are good in stealing information or installing backdoors.
Worms are a also self-replicating type of malware hackers will install onto your system’s memory. Once installed, this software can slowly infect your entire system or potentially your entire network. This type of malware can change system files, steal your data directly, or even open a backdoor for hackers to control your entire system.
Trojan horses are a type of malware that masks itself as a different program. I am sure you have watched the movie "Troy" where the defeat was due to allowing a trojan horse full of enemy soldiers. Similarly, if you download software from an untrustworthy source or try to pirate software, it will often come packaged with a trojan horse. Once you’ve installed your program, it will often work as expected, but in the background, the trojan horse will collect your data or control your PC while you’re unaware.
Ransomware is one of the most obvious and dangerous types of malware. It gets onto the system through a virus, worm, or trojan horse, and then it completely locks up the system. Hackers force the victim to pay a ransom, often in bitcoin, to unlock their system. In some extreme cases, to regain access to their network again.
Brute force attack on Wifi networks
While all social networks and office emails have password limits, this kind of attack will still be common for wifi passwords. Once into the wifi, anything is possible. Hence this threat will equally haunt in 2022 as well until wifi networks limit their wrong password attempts.
Data breaches and physical breaches
Once a while your user id may might be
breached while playing online games. Hackers can steal the online platform’s database containing
millions of user login data and private information like emails,
passwords (often hashed), names, addresses, and phone numbers. If this
happens to a platform where you have a user, you tend to receive a
security email from the platform asking you to change your password
immediately. Remember to change that password on every online account
that might be using it! Such data breaches are rare but real!
Similarly Physical breaches are an extremely rare type of hack because they
require someone to gain physical access to a system. In most cases,
these sorts of hacks wouldn’t be possible. Companies tend to have a
large staff and decent security procedures to prevent strangers from
entering their offices and tinkering with their computers however the recent pandemic has made these sorts of attacks much more viable. With
reduced staff in offices, hackers have a much easier time walking in,
going unnoticed, and hacking into systems with physically introduced
software. Also many people are working from home and are not as vigilant at many times, as they are at offices. While this hasn’t happened at a major social media company
yet, there’s still a chance it might happen in 2022. So gear up guys and stay informed on every possibility that the new year may bring to you!
