Cyber security

Two emerging cyber threats are Biometric Hacking and Cyber Attacks via Online Gaming. Hackers can use a 3-D printer to print a replica of someone’s face to fool facial recognition technology. Scans of facial features and fingerprints can be stolen in the same manner as typed passwords and numerical codes. In 2015 5.6 million fingerprints were stolen in the 2015 breach of The Office of Personnel Management. (Dwyer, 2019). Technology combining both facial recognition or fingerprints and blood flowing through the veins is emerging to combat this threat and so far has yet to be hacked. (Rash, 2019).

One-quarter of the world’s population consists of online gamers with great computer skills who can operate anonymously. Because of which, they also have the skills to hack into other games to steal credit card information and other personally identifiable information (PII). Gamers have valuable tokens, weapons, and game pieces that are worth a lot of money within a gaming community and a hacker can take those items and become wealthy. In 2018, the browser-based online game Town of Salem was a victim of such a breach during the holiday making the breach unnoticed for days. Items stolen were passwords, email addresses, and payment information. (Dwyer, 2019). VPN technology is the best method of protecting gamers while playing online. It does so by keeping the users’ IP address hidden as it goes through the VPN server prior to hitting any public internet resources. This makes it very difficult for hackers to obtain this information to circumvent the protection. (Hamilton, 2019).

 References

Dwyer, K. (2019, January 22). 3 Emerging Cyber Threats We’re Not Ready For in 2019. Retrieved from https://riskandinsurance.com/the-3-cyber-threats-were-not-ready-for-in-2019/

Rash, W. (2019, January 5). Biometric Security Can Be Hacked, but It's Really Hard to Do. Retrieved from https://www.eweek.com/security/biometric-security-can-be-hacked-but-it-s-really-hard-to-do

Hamilton, E. (2019, September 17). Can VPN Prevent DDOS Attack while Gaming? Retrieve from https://www.gamenguide.com/articles/101039/20190917/can-vpn-prevent-ddos-attack-while-gaming.htm