science
4
Hacking
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Data security and privacy in computerized systems continues to be of importance to most consumers of technology. The coronavirus pandemic has seen a rise in among other things the use of technology to communicate and execute office related tasks. Hacking is the use of unauthorized means to gain access to information in other peoples computers. This is made possible by the use of malicious codes and data mining software. This information can then be used to blackmail individuals, companies or manipulated to the detriment of the person that lost the information to the hackers.
Hacking can be broadly categorized into three groups based on the intent of the hackers. White hat professionals are hackers that try to infiltrate a system in a bid to figure out possible weaknesses within it, they then relay the information to the developers to help them bolster the system (Good, 2013). The second category are black hat hackers who simply take over a system from their own gain, they may bring an entire system down or even deny the owners access to it. The third group are grey hackers, these are individual who are curious to exploit their understanding of computers systems and simply make attempts at hacking, and when they succeed they pass that information to the developers and thus eventually help them build their security systems.
There are different modes through which hackers try to access a system, this could be through malicious emails, phishing sites requiring certain data to be filled and creation of fake websites that easily look real. Software can also be attached to certain applications that collect and relay data to the developer without the gadgets knowledge. When one is a target of hackers, it is impossible to be completely immune. Even some of the most guarded technological infrastructure have been victim to hacking with Twitter being the most recent in the attacks(Sanger et al., 2020). Encryption of data and messages has however helped reduce the vulnerability of systems to hackers (Cao et al., 2013). An alternate approach is the use of genuine software and antiviruses on one’s devices. These defense software help identify loopholes and notify user when they are using suspicious software.
References
Cao, Y., Miao, Q., Liu, J., & Gao, L. (2013). Abstracting minimal security-relevant behaviors for malware analysis. Journal of Computer Virology and Hacking Techniques, 9(4), 193–204. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11416-013-0186-3
Good, M. (2013). A Survey of Russian Hacking. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2430936
Sanger, D. E., Perlroth, N., & Corasaniti, N. (2020, July 16). What the Twitter Hack Revealed: An Election System Teeming With Risks. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/us/politics/twitter-hack.html