Hacking

Computer Hacking

INTRO

Hacking is a serious modern day problem, thousands of people, websites and businesses are hacked every day, and millions are hacked every year. These numbers are constantly increasing due to our lives becoming more and more online. At the moment it's only our computers and credit cards being hacked which may seem like a big deal but in a few years it could just be our houses and cars which would be a lot worse if nothing changes. There are many possible solutions and routes we could take and there are already things in place to prevent hackers but these could possibly be improved as well.

The answer is to take multiple actions, so when all are applied it will effectively decrease the amount of yearly data breaches.

I have come up with four possible solutions that will require both the public and experts to participate.

Normal people with non IT related jobs can do their bit by doing their best to stop themselves from getting hacked. This means having random letter and number passwords, never using the same password twice and also if you can’t remember your passwords there are plenty of apps designed to manage them.

Another simple way to protect yourself is to add multi step verifications to things like your emails since this is a popular way hackers can get through to you.

There are also helpful things you can remember to protect yourself online. Things like being careful when accessing public wifi and not clicking on random emails you're not expecting.

All these things will make it a lot harder for hackers to break in and steal your information.

There are lots of things computer companies can do in terms of making better computer security systems. Because computers aren't often all made in one factory or even country this makes it difficult to make and even close to a perfect system, and most computers have thousands of bugs and glitches making it super easy for hackers to target anyone. If these were designed by the same people in the same factory using computer parts from the same suppliers this would reduce the bugs in systems a huge amount. The next solution is to have paid professionals patrol online sites daily, like the police of the internet. This came out as one of the top answers because although it might seem to be very minimal, would be very cost efficient as well as effective and would probably stop a lot of people being hacked in the future.

I believe that these are very possible and effective solutions and that if we follow these steps the number of data breaches could be reduced in the future.

What is hacking?

Officially hacking is accessing a computer system without authorisation. Even if it isn't for malicious purposes anyone who isn’t authorized can be charged as a criminal. There are many subgenres of hacking but most of these cybercrimes boil down to hacking. However there is one particular type of hacking that is 100% legal if you're authorised to do it. This is called white hat hacking, a white hat hacker is someone who is paid to hack companies and businesses for the purposes of finding weak points in case a black hat hacker (someone who hacks for malicious purposes) tries to hack the company. Sometimes it’s not necessary to hack the company to find weak points and it's only legal if the white hat hacker has consent to do so.

Someone may want to hack a company or person illegally for several reasons, one might be for money or for or for data collection (sying). Another common reason is just to give a person a challenge they would then post how they did it on a media platform. This type of hacking is done by people called grey hat hackers and it’s still very illegal even though there is no direct harm.

Damage

When hackers have accessed a computer system depending on what they have breached and how skilled they are they can do a lot of damage. If they have accessed someone's personal computer they can change, delete and read all information on there, they can spy, steal and also bug the computer. There really is no limit to what they have access to so it would be really unfortunate if you were to get hacked. When it comes to hacking companies, often large ones building’s are electronically controlled which puts them at risk. If a building were to be hacked the hacker could stop everything from working and blackmail the company. The damage done doesn't always necessarily have to be done online; it is possible that it could harm the actual hardware as well especially if it’s more than just a computer being hacked but either is possible.

The overall damage done by hackers is quite significant, in 2019 there were thousands of new websites being hacked every day with roughly 8.5 billion by the end of the year.

This graph shows the growth of data breaches through the years in America as more and more people get online.

Law

The laws of hacking and cybercrime differ between countries but are often very similar. In New Zealand there are four laws regarding pure cybercrime; computer intrusion, attacks on a computer system, malicious software and cyber enabled crime. Computer intrusion is your basic hacking or breaking into a computer system without owners consent. The intent of the attack can vary and can also be done in different forms.

Attacks on a computer system refers to the installation or removal of software or data on one's computer, this offence is one that often comes after hacking.

The next one (malicious software) is using software to automatically do something on someone else's computer. This can include things like recording what a person types or enabling screen recording.

The last one is cyber enabled crime which is any crime enabled by the use of software, for example; if you robbed a bank online that would fall under this charge. These crimes are similar and are all put under what is called pure cybercrime.

Some of these laws wouldn't apply to a white hat hacker who is paid and has permission to do so.

Being charged of these crimes may include a fine, time in prison or both depending on the severity of the crime.

There will be very similar laws and charges in most countries but because of there being a possibility of there being a cybercrime committed from overseas it makes it difficult for police to actually catch hackers. Sometimes it actually does look like a lot of cyber criminals get caught when you look at the statistics only about 5% actually do.

This is because it’s so easy to stay anonymous online and hackers often have several ways to encrypt themselves. The ones that do get caught are caught because often they either made a vital mistake or were just inexperienced.

Defence

There are hundreds of ways you can protect yourself online and when using the internet but none will 100% protect you from being hacked. This is because anyone can be targeted and fall for online social engineering which is one thing technology can’t prevent.

Social engineering is the most popular way hackers use when targeting multiple individuals online. It’s when they make a site or ad seem super legitimate but in reality it's a scam that's tricking you into giving away information and credentials that they can use to hack into your emails, bank account and computer. The only way to prevent yourself getting hacked this way is to be very cautious when ever entering information online. Use only trusted websites and to prevent unwanted ones coming up so much use search engines like google chrome and not internet explorer.

Another equally important if not more important precaution to take is having different passwords for everything or at the very least a different email password. It may be confusing remembering all of them if you don't you will be at high risk of being hacked, you can download apps (trusted ones only) to manage all your passwords.

If you want to know if an app is trustworthy or not, just never download random stuff off the internet, always use the app store or google play.

Since hackers rarely target individuals and more often just anyone who falls into their online traps you don't have to worry about being spied on unlike businesses. They are at a much bigger risk, they have to worry about being targeted and unlike how other individual people get hacked they have to worry about actually being purposely broken into instead of just falling into a trap. So solutions for this are hiring someone to exploit them for the purpose of finding vulnerabilities and reporting back to them and then hiring a security consultant, this is called a pen test.

These are the most effective ways both business and yourself can protect against being hacked. They aren’t 100% full proof but there are no ways to prevent hackers because there are thousands of bugs and vulnerabilities in systems everywhere.

How do hackers hack?

A hacker always has multiple ways of getting into a system if they wanted to target random individuals they would setup sites on the internet, for example; an instagram followers generator would then promist thousands of followers at the cost of nothing. All you have to do is enter a bunch of details, they would get those details which would lead them into their instagram where they could get onto other social media sites including their email. From their email they could have instant power over your computer. This is why it’s so important to protect your email above all other things. Other ways are putting bugged public wifis up that when you press accept will immediately take over control of your phone. Sending out random spam mail with “security update downloads” is another type of social engineering used by hackers.

To hack businesses it sometimes requires different strategies, like hacking into the wifi or scanning the networks for vulnerabilities in the system. Often they will try social engineering but since the have a single target the may as well try other strategies.

What are hackers capable of?

Hackers can hack most electronic devices even if they aren't connected to the internet. This includes everything from your phone and computer to your tv and possibly air conditioning system.

Once they have control over your computer they can steal your money, destroy information, spy, rewire it and then move onto your friends using your contacts.

They can put companies offline or steal money and information, sometimes they might even use blackmail.

Think about everything you have ever used on your computer and all information you have put on your computer they will have access to all that and more.

Possible solutions to stop widespread hacking

Solutions to prevent hacking vary and often depend on the target. For businesses the best solution might be to get a pen test from a white hat hacker, for personnel protection you might just need to change your passwords.

But if we go to the source of the problem, to where computers are made you will find that a reason why there are so many bugs and glitches in computers for hackers to exploit is because nothing is really made in the same place. The materials are shipped from all over the world, then the separate components are made and coded in another place, then the final assembly takes place in another factory.

Because of all this mobility in the assembly it leaves a lot of opportunity for faults somewhere in the line, the end result may not at first seem too far from the initial design but there will end up being thousands of bugs that will be easy for hackers to exploit.

The solution is to have the whole computer system assembled in one place, or at least more of it then there is now.

Since you can be hacked from anywhere in the world another reasonable path to take is to have a cyber security team patrol online sites from anywhere in the world to check for breaches. This may seem like it could be underwhelming but every website they find is possibly a hundred prevented data breaches.

Conclusion

Hacking is someone purposely gaining access to a computer system for good or bad reasons and the main way to determine this is whether they have permission to do so or not. Illegal hacking can result in a fine or imprisonment.

You have to be careful about hackers whenever using the internet because they are everywhere. Because of the number of strategies they can use against anyone it makes it very easy to get into peoples passwords, email, social media and even bank details.

It is very important to have different passwords for everything, this is because once a password has been hacked, if it's all the same then the hacker has access to everything.

A strategy hackers use is known as online social engineering or phishing, it’s basically a site or email that requires you to sign up for something and energy important details like your password. Unbelievably thousands of people fall for these and end up losing their email and bank account, so it’s best to be careful when entering important information.

Since there are multiple forms of hacking and it’s such a worldwide problem it makes it impossible for there to be only one solution or sometimes any solution.

The answer is to take multiple actions, so when all are applied it will effectively decrease the amount of yearly data breaches.

First of all you must ensure that you have taken necessary steps to defend yourself from hackers that will decrease some of the damage done already.

The other options are to have computers made and assembled in the same place to prevent bugs and have internet police patrol online sites looking for bugs.

This may not stop all data breaches since technology is always updating but in will definity reduce them a huge amount.

Works Cited

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. “Hacking.” Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 7 Jan. 2018, www.scamwatch.gov.au/types-of-scams/attempts-to-gain-your-personal-information/hacking#:~:text=Hacking occurs when a scammer,computer, mobile device or network.

Diallo, Amadou. “Three Ways To Protect Yourself From Hackers.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 7 Aug. 2014, www.forbes.com/sites/amadoudiallo/2014/08/06/three-ways-to-protect-yourself-from-hackers/#207ba4f545bb.

“Do VPNs Prevent You from Getting Hacked & What Else Can I Do to Secure Myself?” Black Nova Designs, 7 Feb. 2020, www.blacknovadesigns.co.uk/do-vpns-prevent-you-from-getting-hacked-what-else-can-i-do-to-secure-myself/.

EC-Council. “Types of Hackers and What They Do: White, Black, and Grey: EC-Council Official Blog.” EC, 3 Jan. 2019, blog.eccouncil.org/types-of-hackers-and-what-they-do-white-black-and-grey/.

Grimes, Roger A. “15 Signs You've Been Hacked -- and How to Fight Back.” CSO Online, InfoWorld, 6 Aug. 2020, www.csoonline.com/article/2457873/signs-youve-been-hacked-and-how-to-fight-back.html.

Melendez, Steven. “The Effects of Computer Hacking on an Organization.” Small Business - Chron.com, Chron.com, 11 Jan. 2019, smallbusiness.chron.com/effects-computer-hacking-organization-17975.html#:~:text=The effects of hacking can,the software that hackers use.

Pullar-Strecker, Tom. “'Hack' or No Hack, Accessing a Computer System without Authorisation Carries Risk.” Stuff, NationalWorldBusinessClimate ChangeSportPerspectivesPou TiakiCoronavirusEntertainmentHomedLife & StyleTravelWeatherMotoringStuff NationKEA Kids NewsPlay StuffQuizzesPuzzlesCartoonsNewslettersPoliticsSpotlightFood & WineRugbyFarmingTechnologyOddstuffAucklandWellingtonCanterburyWaikatoBay of PlentyTaranakiManawatuNelsonMarlboroughTimaruOtagoSouthlandCareersAdvertisingContactPrivacy© 2020 Stuff LimitedBusiness, 7 June 2019, www.stuff.co.nz/business/113324294/hack-or-no-hack-accessing-a-computer-system-without-authorisation-carries-risk#:~:text=It is important to understand,and came into being 2003.

Santus, Rex. “What You Need to Know about Tor and the Hackers Targeting It.” Mashable, Mashable, 27 Dec. 2014, mashable.com/2014/12/26/what-is-tor/.

“What Is Hacking - Everything You Need to Know Hackers.” Malwarebytes, www.malwarebytes.com/hacker/.

Shaun Ripley

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