Why security is important?
Organization around the world invest a lot in computer security. Most of the organization have a dedicated IT team or they hire white hat hackers to perform penetration testing with the aim of patching the vulnerabilities. There are multiple ways and techniques used by the hackers to exploit technical vulnerabilities such as SQL injection, cross site scripting (XSS) and buffer overflow etc. Even though these vulnerabilities are critical organization should be aware of securing the entry point of Cyber-attacks.
No tech hack is a common and popular hacking method among the hackers where hackers hack the victim rather than the technology. Hackers have a lots of fancy names for different types of no tech exploits where social engineering, dumpster diving, shoulder surfing and tail gating are common techniques among them. For an example, an organization has restricted entrance for the employees to the data center in their premises. The authorized user must enter a PIN code or must show the card towards the reader to get the access to the data center. An unauthorized employee could shoulder surf the password that is being entered in the machine and later he or she could enter the same password to get access into the data center. In this scenario the hack has been performed on the authorized employee not on the machine or technology. Fine tuning the words is another popular technique used among the hackers. In this technique the hacker will develop a conversation to fulfill the need either directly or indirectly. The only drawback here is it is hard to stay anonymous. These types of hack are known has no tech hack.
The hard truth is even though many people refer these observation and techniques as old fashioned these methods still works in 2020s’. Incidents such as calling the help desk to obtain sensitive accounts username and passwords, faking the uniform and badge to slip or bypass through the front door terminal are still succeeding and told to be huge security threat.
Cyber criminals always opt for easy way to earn big money. The above-mentioned hacks are easier than the technical hacks but there are some hacks which are easier than above mentioned. Social media surfing is highly effective among them. We see almost every person in social media nowadays and that is inevitable. Although people have privacy concerns and act accordingly in social media still many people not aware about the impacts that could create in their daily activity. As social media access is easy hackers often collect information about their victims through them especially when it is publicly viewable. As everyone knows social media could leak sensitive information such as address, email, telephone no. (not frequently as it is optional in most cases) and other relevant data. It is also easy get connected with an unknown person in social media and this could allow the hacker to develop a conversation to manipulate the victim for information disclosure.
This generation of computer users has more awareness than the previous generations but as the technology and its loophole are developing on daily basis the knowledge most of the people have is not enough. Internet is far most vast than in the past and a small data could leak all the information of the victim. That is the reason for increment in Cyber terrorism, Cyber stalking, identity theft, children and woman abuse and pornography and many more. When an uploaded photo of a user is publicly available it is not only photo that is leaked other information such as location, date and time, connections, and lot more information has been leaked.
This is where Cyber security protection is lethal against attacks. Implementation of good policies and technologies ensures the attacks are ineffective sometimes even after performing no tech hacks. All the internet users should be aware of types of modern-day attacks and people who are working in the related field should be updating themselves every day and should be given awareness session every now and then.
