These online villains typically use phishing scams , spam email or instant messages and bogus websites to deliver dangerous malware to your computer and compromise your computer security. Computer hackers can also try to access your computer and private information directly if you are not protected by a firewall. They can monitor your conversations or peruse the back-end of your personal website. Usually disguised with a bogus identity, predators can lure you into revealing sensitive personal and financial information, or much worse.
While your computer is connected to the Internet, the malware a hacker has installed on your PC quietly transmits your personal and financial information without your knowledge or consent. Or, a computer predator may pounce on the private information you unwittingly revealed.
In either case, they will be able to:. Predators who stalk people while online can pose a serious physical threat. Check the accuracy of your personal accounts, credit cards, and documents.
Are there unexplained transactions? Questionable or unauthorized changes? Download Malwarebytes Premium free for 14 days. But this is a narrow view that doesn't begin to encompass the wide range of reasons why someone turns to hacking. To learn about the various motivations different types of hackers might have, read Under the hoodie: why money, power, and ego drive hackers to cybercrime. Also, check out our Malwarebytes Labs' podcast episode, interviewing hacker Sick Codes:.
Hacking is typically technical in nature like creating malvertising that deposits malware in a drive-by attack requiring no user interaction. But hackers can also use psychology to trick the user into clicking on a malicious attachment or providing personal data. In fact, it's accurate to characterize hacking as an over-arching umbrella term for activity behind most if not all of the malware and malicious cyberattacks on the computing public, businesses, and governments.
Besides social engineering and malvertising, common hacking techniques include:. As an example, see: Emotet. Systems advertised for sale on the forum range from Windows XP through to Windows The storeowners even offer tips for how those using the illicit logins can remain undetected.
Broadly speaking, you can say that hackers attempt to break into computers and networks for any of four reasons. There's even another category of cybercriminals: the hacker who is politically or socially motivated for some cause. For notable hacktivist groups, along with some of their more famous undertakings, see Anonymous , WikiLeaks , and LulzSec. There's also another way we parse hackers.
Remember the classic old Western movies? Today's cybersecurity frontier retains that Wild West vibe, with white hat and black hat hackers , and even a third in-between category. If a hacker is a person with deep understanding of computer systems and software, and who uses that knowledge to somehow subvert that technology, then a black hat hacker does so for stealing something valuable or other malicious reasons.
So it's reasonable to assign any of those four motivations theft, reputation, corporate espionage, and nation-state hacking to the black hats. White hat hackers , on the other hand, strive to improve the security of an organization's security systems by finding vulnerable flaws so that they can prevent identity theft or other cybercrimes before the black hats notice.
Corporations even employ their own white hat hackers as part of their support staff, as a recent article from the New York Times online edition highlights. Or businesses can even outsource their white hat hacking to services such as HackerOne, which tests software products for vulnerabilities and bugs for a bounty. Finally, there's the gray hat crowd, hackers who use their skills to break into systems and networks without permission just like the black hats.
But instead of wreaking criminal havoc, they might report their discovery to the target owner and offer to repair the vulnerability for a small fee. If your computer, tablet, or phone is at the bull's-eye of the hacker's target, then surround it with concentric rings of precautions. First and foremost, download a reliable anti-malware product or app for the phone , which can both detect and neutralize malware and block connections to malicious phishing websites.
Of course, whether you're on Windows, Android, a Mac, an iPhone, or in a business network, we recommend the layered protection of Malwarebytes for Windows , Malwarebytes for Mac , Malwarebytes for Android , Malwarebytes for Chromebook , Malwarebytes for iOS , and Malwarebytes business products.
Second, only download phone apps from the legitimate marketplaces that police themselves for malware-carrying apps, such as Google Play and Amazon Appstore. Note that Apple policy restricts iPhone users to download only from the App Store. Even so, every time you download an app, check the ratings and reviews first. If it has a low rating and a low number of downloads, it is best to avoid that app. Know that no bank or online payment system will ever ask you for your login credentials, social security number, or credit card numbers by means of email.
Whether you're on your phone or a computer, make sure your operating system remains updated. And update your other resident software as well. Avoid visiting unsafe websites, and never download unverified attachments or click on links in unfamiliar emails. You can also use Malwarebytes Browser Guard for safer browsing. All the above is basic hygiene, and always a good idea. They are the most damaging because they are not patched. Security teams do not know how to defend against them, and often don't even realize a system has been compromised.
The hackers behind these attacks are highly-skilled, scary-smart hackers. Zero-day attacks are usually carried out on multinational businesses or national security systems. Heartbleed was a zero-day exploit publicized in against Linux servers. Shockingly, there is no way of knowing how many people knew about and used the exploit before it was made public—and the code that Heartbleed exploited was introduced three years before its vulnerabilities were ever publicized.
The majority of present day hacks use code that has been written by someone else and released into the wild. These hacks are fairly easy to defend against if a computer is updated. Security organizations are very good at pushing security updates once hacks have been discovered and the code is released.
If a kid can find a script online, so can a security professional. Here is an easy, step-by-step process for hacking a computer:.
Social engineering , the practice of manipulating people to divulge information, is by far the easiest method of gaining access to a computer system. Users might not intentionally give away their password—but some guile, psychology knowledge, and a touch of trickery are more than enough for hackers to get what they want. Programming-based hacking is significantly harder, involving a lot of effort to find exposed vulnerabilities.
Hackers exploit vulnerable code to gain full system administrative privileges. It must fail in a way that benefits the hacker. Did you know? Hacking isn't nearly as glamorous as Hollywood portrays. It's a lot of brute force experimentation and guesswork that can take months or more. Here is a great example of what hacking isn't. In the clip, two people are trying to defend from a hack by furiously typing while thousands of popups barrage the screen. More hands on a keyboard are not helpful, nor do most hackers advertise their presence on a system with annoying pop-ups.
The Social Network 's depiction of Zuckerburg here is better. While it is dressed up, his hack is technically accurate—he navigates to different student directories and uses basic scripts to navigate around the structure and security of each site to download images. He only grabs several hundred photos from highly insecure websites over the course of a late night coding session, ignoring sites that were harder to access.
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