The Common Types of Hacking and How You Can Avoid Them

In our time, robbery and theft isn’t just with money and possessions. In the digital world, hacking is a thing. If you’ve been living under a rock, you might be asking yourself what hacking is now. Otherwise, you would know that hacking comes in a lot of forms.

Over the years, cyber-criminals improve and develop new ways on how they can execute their sinister plans. This is why online security has been such a big deal especially in the recent years. Even if that is the case, a majority of internet users are still blinded and unaware that hacking is real.

In this article, we’ll be discussing what hacking is as well as its common types. Also, we will be detailing how you can be safe from it.

What is hacking?

Hacking is basically defined as the gaining of access to information that is done without authorization. It’s done by changing up the features of either a network or the system by targeting its vulnerable points. Hackers are thepeople we refer to as the one who do the hacking. There are white hat hackers (those who do the good); black hat hackers (those on the bad side); and grey hat hackers (good at one point but bad sometimes).

There are various techniques black hat hackers do to gain information or access. And that’s what we will be focusing on in this topic. Moreover, we’ll also teach you a couple of security tricks for you to be safe from these cyber-criminals.

Common hacking techniques and strategies

Because of the continuous effort of white hat hackers, cyber-security gets a lot of improvement on how and what the trend is in terms of hacking. Every day, tech security experts develop new ways to counter or to prevent hackers.

Nevertheless, here are the most “known” or common hacking tactics hackers do.

Malware

Malicious software that successfully enters your system is dangerous. In fact, it might just be the only thing cyber-criminals need to extract information they need. There are many different kinds of malware and once they board your system, you’re going to be in bad shape.

Malware can be delivered to you in many forms. It could be emailed to you, and you unknowingly opened or clicked a link; it could be a link you have clicked from a normal website; or a file you’ve downloaded.

Denial of Service (DoS)

Ever since hacking became a thing, one of the most classical ways attackers use is the Denial of Service (DoS). It could also be a Distributed Denial of Service (DDos); and it’s part of the few basic ways on how cyber-criminals take networks and systems down.

In this type of attack, attackers do basic to complicated DoS-es. In a carefully-planned attack, hackers infect hundreds to thousands of systems forming a “botnet.” This botnet will then be what they’ll use to bombard a target network with heavy internet traffic.

Usually, victims of malware are the ones looked at to either be a DoS or a DDoS target. So, this technique requires a symphony of sinister actions.

Keylogging

Probably one of the oldest yet simplest and effective hacking tactics is keylogging. Keylogging is the type of attack that allows the hacker to record the strokes you’ve made on a keyboard. Not just that, it can also reveal whatever you’ve typed in such as usernames, passwords, email addresses, etc.

One way to avoid being a victim of this kind of attack is to use an on-screen keyboard. Yes, this is the reason why financial corporations use virtual on-screen keyboards; they refrain from using a regular keyboard as it can be keylogged.

Phishing

Phishing is known to be the first step of action attackers take. With this, hackers have specific targets with the hopes of getting information out of the people using different techniques they’ve developed. Phishing is commonly done through email and is often bitten by people.

Cookie Theft

Cookies are the bit of files collected and stored in your system after visiting various websites. Yes, these can hold a ton of information about you and your activity. It can be stored securely and also in plain text. This is what these cyber-criminals and hackers want.

Once they’re able to decrypt the cookies, they can try to impersonate you. Furthermore, it can also reveal your information so that they can use it for their own sake.

Honey pots

This is why we tell you to avoid public wi-fi. Public wi-fi can easily be imitated by these cyber-criminals. It’s actually one of the easiest and greatest things hackers do to get information from people.

They can set-up a bogus wi-fi hotspot and when you connect, they’ll be able to monitor every move you make. In addition, they can also create a good-looking website, the only difference is, it’s the opposite. The website they’ve done might be a pool for malware, spreading to everyone who opens or downloads a link from the website.

How can you be safe from these hacking techniques?

These techniques vary on how it’s done and what the goal of the hacker is. The most and the single thing you need to do is to be cautious in terms of accessing things online. Being aware of your online security is relevant. In fact, remembering these things can save you from being a victim of hacking:

• Use strong passwords in all of your accounts. As much as possible, try to create different passwords for each account you have (personal, finance, emails, etc.)
• Instead of using normal and generic search engines, use private search engines. These search engines don’t collect information from you.
• Always “think” that a hacker might be around. This way, you won’t connect to all public wi-fi hotspots that you see.
• Use a Virtual Private Network (VPN). A VPN encrypts all of your internet traffic, keeping you safe from hackers, fraudsters, even your internet service providers (ISPs).
• Never download or click on links that came from unfamiliar and suspicious sources.
• Avoid connecting to public wi-fi hotspots. If you really need to, use VPN with it.

Hacking is something serious. It’s not just a myth, in fact, with the improvement in hacking techniques and strategies, many people fall victim to it. Always take extra precautionary measures when you’re accessing the internet. You don’t know who’s there and what their purpose is so beware.