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Article Summary Assignment #1

Prepared by: Student’s Nam

Date: July 18th 2020

ECS 6200 – Managing Information Security

Article Title: What the Twitter Hack Revealed: An Election System Teeming With Risk

Reference: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/us/politics/twitter-hack.htm

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.

Unauthorized access to persons’ accounts can be misused by having accounts relay communications guised as coming from the legitimate owner. This was the case in the twitter hack where prominent accounts were misused for a Bitcoins collection drive. In the case of an election or a matter of national security, such a move would mean that people receive alarming and falsified information without being sure of the source. The end result would be a swing vote to a certain direction informed by the manipulated tweets. The influence one command on technological platforms is itself a possible risk factor that attracts hackers. Silent and non-active accounts are hardly hacked due to the low premium such accounts hold.

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. 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.