What is hacking ? Hacking at the most basic way can be explained as getting access to someones else personal computer, and then copying, viewing, or leaving trace with data creating, also destroying or harming PC. Even through the course of history, term hacking was referred to stuff that was not necessarily connected to computers, today most of hacking and hackers are related to PC attacks. There are many antivirus and malware programs that are used to combat against viruses and protecting your system from hacking.
But there are many ways you could get hacked. When your PC is hacked, it’s best to completely uninstall your operating system if you can, because you can’t trust your PC once it’s affected or compromised. There are lot of experienced users still getting hacked but most of the time it’s non tech people. They are most favorite target of hackers, and only one click is enough for hack to happen because they can’t react so quickly and follow the speed of hacking to protect themselves before it’s too late.
One of bigger scam hacks is getting message on email that you will get large amount of money from deceased soldier, ( stories are always similar ) and they only require your personal info to be filled and printed to them. After that is completed, they send you more requests, for example you must send some money, so that they can process required documentation, and send money to your bank account. This is lie and many people hooked up onto it, believed the story, sending lots of money in order to never hear again from scammer and left without nothing.
If you are in a public caffe bar, airport or hotel you should avoid using WiFI connection, simply because you have no idea if those computers are affected with virus. You could put your USB inside and it would become affected, and then you come home and plug it in your PC and the damage is already done. If you see open WiFi connection when you are on your PC don’t be tempted to connect on it. Your files are not protected as connection is transferring through the air. This means your private information be it password for some website or even credit card numbers can be sniffed by third party, or hacker. One of most common ways user can fall in trap of being hacked is the old fashioned way of phishing scams. People are free willingly giving their usernames and passwords to malicious webpages, users can come to website like that usually through links on e-mails. Don’t use same passwords for different websites, if one of these websites gets hacked, your email and sensitive information is compromised.
In order to be prepared and protected take some measures. You can register alternative mail addresses, provide answers for secret questions so you can confirm your identity or register your mobile phone number for authentication. Good idea would be buying external hard drive and putting all your multimedia and other important files to it, because even if you are not hacked it’s good to have it all safe if your laptop crashes. Most important is to practice your defensive computing skills and be ready by having a plan of what to do if your account is being hacked.
