How do you define a real hacker?

Beltran Borja Fiz Pontiveros. — “Under the Merrian-Webster dictionary there are several meanings to the term hacker, but the two relevant ones in this case are: – “An expert at programming and solving problems with a computer” – “A person who illegally gains access to and sometimes tampers with information in a computer system” Ethical or white hackers are those closer to the first definition and it is a term that was used during my studies as a term of praise. However the most common use, especially in the media is the latter meaning, and they are also known as black-hat hackers. These are individuals with malicious intents and commonly seeking to cause financial harm.

How do you know when you are being hacked? What are the solutions against a hack?

“One of the objectives during an attack scenario is to avoid detection, therefore it might very well be the case that you only notice after the event. However a common scenario today is that a malicious actor gains unauthorised access to a social media account, and they use that as a platform to target the contacts within. Knowing how you can reach out to people in your social media network through a separate channel ahead can help you contact them quickly and prevent contacts from falling into scams. The best solution to not being hacked beyond having any digital footprint at all would be to always operate under the assumption that you will be hacked. So if you register for a new service and provide them with certain personal information, always determine what is the harm an eventual hack in this system and/or data breach could cause you. An account being hacked is a matter of when rather than if.

What cyber security good practice would you recommend to our readers?

“Research has shown that to this day the majority of users continue to use a unique password across multiple accounts and services. This unfortunately means that if one of these accounts gets compromised and your credentials fall into the wrong hands, then you could now have compromised all the other accounts sharing the same credentials. So my main suggestion would be to avoid reusing the same password, the same email and the same profile picture across different accounts and services. Reusing any of these items allows malicious users to link together accounts and increase the attack space.”