One of the most powerful tools in a hacker’s arsenal is something used and trusted by millions of people everyday: social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. While at first glance these sites may not seem malicious, they are being exploited by hackers to gain access to your personal information.Let me ask you this, have you ever received a friend request from someone you do not know? How about a link to a video from a “friend” on a site you’ve never heard of? These are two of hackers go to moves in an attempt to breach your profile. One glance at all the information you make available there is all a hacker needs to start trying to dig deeper, accessing your bank accounts and other, more sensitive information.The best policy you can adopt is to never accept friend requests from people you do not know and to never follow, or at least be very wary of links that take you off the website. Hackers often setup dummy profiles complete with pictures, birthdays and even wives and kids! They may claim to have gone to high school or college with you, or maybe they are a friend of your neighbors cousin. Not all friend requests are malicious, but its good to verify that someone in your circle knows the person who contacted you before accepting any friend requests.Another hacker trick is to send you a link to a “cool video” or “amazing picture”. The link may have even come from one of your friends! But, there’s a chance that all the website will do is steal personal information. Don’t click on any links that take you to unknown websites, even if they come from a friend. Hackers who compromise an account send out these links, luring more people into their traps.Sometimes you can do everything right and still fall victim to a cyber attack. In the ever-increasing arms race between hackers and security companies, sometimes the hackers gain the upper hand, creating new types of attacks that security companies don’t even know exist until weeks or even months later.
Look no further than the recent attacks on Sony’s network that disclosed the personal information of over 100 million people, and you can see that even a titan with nearly unlimited resources can still fall victim to hackers using innovative and cutting edge weapons.
