The Technological Divide
With the dawn of a new, imminent era brought by the Internet, it was clear to many that the Cold War was only going to continue. However, while not as serious nowadays, the Cold War is still a thing but the game has changed. While a few decades back, governments of the world used to throw spies around to gather information, now they can gather all they want from their homes, with a few clicks. Of course, spies still exist today, but I bet they’re a bit jealous on what skilled hackers can do.
If you keep up with tech news and developments you may be aware of the potential for embedded medical devices to be hacked and used to covertly track and monitor people. Their devices could even be used to distribute malware. Pacemakers and insulin pumps, heart monitors and other devices could be vulnerable. Imagine using medical devices to extort someone with a threat on their life.
You have never been hacked, or at least the likelihood that what you perceive as being hacked wasn’t really hacking at all. People that don’t know any better often claim they have been “hacked” out of embarrassment for using poor passwords, weak security question answers, or falling victim to phishing attempts. Sometimes it is just ignorance in general.
Are you cheating on your spouse? Then, you might be highly concerned of your privacy getting compromised, or your partner obtaining information about your escapades. Ashley Madison, an online dating site with the tag line “Life is short, have an affair”, catering to individuals wanting to have an affair, recently found their database security breached and considerable user data stolen by a group of self-styled hackers by name, the Impact Team.
I’ll be the first to call anybody that refuses to run antivirus on Microsoft Windows a fool. Microsoft Windows just isn’t built the same way as Linux. Being careful on Windows just isn’t enough to prevent malware. Linux is different and the types of threats faced by Linux users aren’t thwarted by an antivirus suite. Proper practices when using Linux will gave you enough protection. Of course technology changes and this may not always be true, but at the time of this writing it is.
The new build (9860) for Windows 10 technical preview is here it was released a couple of weeks ago and it comes with a new set of feature.
Windows Defender that comes preloaded on your Windows 10 technical preview is a full fledged antivirus that you can rely on as a stand alone solution for any type of virus/attack, it’s worth clearing the conflict between Microsoft Security Essentials which was a quirky security solution and the new Windows Defender that is shipped with Windows 10 technical preview.
One of the most effective ways to protect your website from being hacked is to use two factor authentication. Two factor authentication adds a second layer of security to your website, so even if the bad guys could guess your password and username they will be stopped by this second layer of security, there are various protocols for two factor authentication and it’s not the aim of this post to present and compare them.