Last week, I had a customer come in for a virus check. I ran a few scans through his laptop and found nothing. I ran another, more advanced scan that took twice as long, but found nothing. I eventually enforced all my IT skills, and yet, found nothing. A few hours after his defeated departure, we found astonishing news: his whole machine was being fully (unnoticeably) controlled by a host in Germany. Needless to say, I immediately emailed the customer advising him to come by as soon as possible to apply a couple of fixes to his issue before the perpetrator snagged more information from his device. Nonetheless, the possibility of extremely important and personal information being compromised was almost certain.
I have dealt with viruses and malware almost my whole life as a computer guy; I have helped others in removing these infected files as well as cleaning up my own devices. Regardless, I never really contemplated the danger it brings to even connect to an unknown Wi-Fi until today. I know, it is paranoid to even worry about what Wi-Fi you are connecting to, but truth is, we are not safe anywhere. Hackers, as they often call themselves, do not really get much credit; you do not really hear the news talk about a 43-year-old woman whose laptop got hacked. Her bank account got compromised and the hacker was able to steal credit card information and use it at his will. Yes, I made this up. And yes, this is completely doable.
As technology keeps developing, these kinds of threats are becoming easier for beginners to execute; seriously, though, anyone can look up a tutorial on how to crack into your neighbor's wireless network using Kali Linux operating system (hacker’s favorite, which is free to install, too).
Now, taking a look into "Mr. Robot," the so famous series peaking on 2016, where hacking is taken to the next level and Elliot Anderson is capable of hacking into people’s lives: are we really that far from this? Sure enough, high-security facilities such as The Pentagon contain nearly flawless walls of code that protect them from hackers, but what if one day, just for one day, someone would find a flaw? What if someone hacks into The Pentagon and leaks all their information?
Alright, let us face it; barely anyone would attempt to hack The Pentagon, at least not for now. For all we know there could be a group of hackers sitting on their computers right now attempting to break into their security. But if we are talking about everyday life, where people are more vulnerable, hackers could easily test their skills in this environment. I mean, someone could be remotely using your computer without you knowing; you would have to be one hell of a target for sure. Stepping it down, someone could be using your Wi-Fi without your authorization. OK, no big deal, until they begin messing with your network and intersect all sorts of traffic that you sent.
While more things begin to be connected to the Internet (for example, smart houses) more threats are created. Eventually, a series of connected devices is created, called the Internet of things. This, and trust me on this, is the favorite target for hackers. Breaking into your network could basically grant them access to all these devices, and with the appropriate knowledge, manipulate them at their desire. However, not all of these hacking skills are used for malicious tasks; like in "Mr. Robot," our protagonist plays the role of a night vigilante – caring for others and protecting society. It is a network battle that we are fighting here; a cyber-war, if you would rather call it that. Honestly, though, is it not frightening enough? Hacks could happen to a president as we see in the scandal of the 2016 elections, and they can happen to any computer; while the information stored in the network becomes more valuable, it is more likely to become a huge target for these perpetrators.
Sadly, barely anyone knows enough things to protect themselves from these threats, and I do not know about you, but that seriously causes me trouble. The day where computer knowledge becomes fundamental is very close; understanding of your network and what our devices are capable of doing will become a must. Otherwise, you are an easy target for a hacker. Could someone be using your Wi-Fi right now? Could you block the hacker off if so? What if someone is looking right at you, in this moment, through your webcam? What if someone created a bad USB and plugged it into your device; did you know it takes few seconds for a script to run and steal all your saved passwords? No, you probably did not. On the bright side, now you know. But what are you going to do about it?
