In our last post we introduced you to 3 common cyber attacks, in this post we want to cover the next 3 most common cyber attacks:
Wi-Fi Eavesdropping
When a user is connected to a public wifi network, hackers can sometimes intercept anything they are sharing over the internet while using that connection.
This means that they are able to steal usernames, passwords and any other unencrypted confidential information that is sent via the wifi network. It is important to note that this applies to both password-protected and open wifi networks!
You can avoid this by using a VPN, but generally speaking, it is advisable to rather just not do anything sensitive (like banking) when you are connected to a public wifi network.
SQL Injection Attack
This sounds fairly complicated – and it probably is complicated to create – but the method of attack is fairly simple.
A hacker creates malicious code and then embeds it into another application. He doesn’t necessarily need to be the app creator in order to get his code into it, if the app isn’t particularly well-built then it can be digitally “hi-jacked”.
Then, you as the user download and install the legitimate app and unfortunately in the process you also give permission to the malicious code – which is now activated on your machine. This means that it can access, steal or change your data.
In order to protect yourself from this type of attack, you need to have good cybersecurity protection software that can scan and verfy an app before you install it.
Brute Force Attack
This type of attack is very similar to the password attack mentioned in our last post. A hacker will use trial-and-error to guess a username and password by simply repeating various combinations of the important things in your life until they are successful.
This is an old method that is surprisingly effective and therefore still popular. And to make matters worse, hackers have now written algorithms that will do the trial-and-error guessing for them. Computers think and act much faster than humans, so a brute-force attack can be successful in a matter of seconds.
Your protections for this are the same as for password hacking: do not use personal information in your passwords, do not use the same password for everything and try and make your passwords as long as possible. A password that is 30 characters or more is virtually uncrackable – even for a brute-force algorithm.
If you are starting to feel a bit stressed out about the safety of your data – please don’t! We want you to take cybersecurity seriously, but we don’t want you to panic.
If you implement the suggestions in these two posts, you will have protected yourself from a very large number of the cyber crime dangers out there and if you want peace of mind, then we recommend installing a complete cybersecurity protection software (not just an antivirus!).
We personally recommend Irontree, but there are plenty of cybersecurity specialists out there. Check them out thoroughly and choose one that makes you feel safe!
