Hacking... Sadly a fact of life in today's technological world.

Some things to know about the hacking world:

First, there are different types of hackers. There are "black hat hackers" these are the ones that get in the news. They are the criminals that are looking for ways to break into systems and steal data and money. They are very prevalent and always finding new ways to go after victims. There are "white hat hackers" or "ethical hackers" (I count myself in this category). These are people who only go where they are invited to test a system (under strict guidelines) for vulnerabilities and if found reports them to the owner so the owner can fix them before the black hat hackers find them. Then there are the "gray hat hackers" these are people who are looking for vulnerabilities but they are going anyplace they feel like and are not typically careful to not break things as they go. They often (but not always) reports back to the owner what they found. They do sometimes broadcast their findings to others causing problems for the owners.

Hackers have lots of tools to go after their prey. First to protect yourself please follow good internet safety practices an example of some good practices are here. Some technics that are being used by hackers (knowledge to help avoid):

Phishing/vishing/smishing: using methods to get their prey to give them access to their accounts

• [ph] - email based, [v] - voice call based, [sm] - text based

• What is [xx]ishing?

• a real world phishing example.

Malware: malicious software. viruses, trojan horses, spy ware,...

• Good anti-virus software can help protect

Ransomware: take data (or system) and only return when ransom is paid.

• Keeping regular backups of your system can help protect