Monday, August 10, 2015

How hackers took over my computer


We hear about hacking every day – but are individuals really vulnerable? Sophie Curtis volunteered to find out.

Online threat: hacking has become more commonplace. Photo: PHOTOLIBRARY.COMThis meant identifying every social networking account, every email account and every online service I had ever signed up to. No attempts were made to break into any of these accounts initially, simply to lift as much information as possible to try and build up a profile of who I was.


Having written a fair amount about cyber security over the past few years, I'm pleased to say that most of my profiles are fairly locked-down. My Facebook has particularly high security settings – almost nothing is visible to anyone who is not an approved friend, and no one who is not at least a friend-of-a-friend is able to send me a request.

This meant that the hackers had little hope of getting to me directly that way. The most they were able to discover was the names of my family members and my fiance, as well as my school, my university and the companies I have worked for in the past.

No comments:

Post a Comment