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Facebook, Twitter and Google+ may seem like a safe place, untouched by the outside world. But is it really that simple? The answer is no.
These three platforms are the major social networking sites that people mostly visit these days. And if you're a person who is careless about his account's security because you think who'd like to hack your ID, then it is most likely that you have been hacked at least once in your lifetime.
First, let's learn what hacking is, hacking is a process by which one can gain access to something for which one is not allowed to or isn't able to easily.
So if someone wants to look into your Facebook messages and can't because he is not you, he can hack into your account to do so.
Hacking in simple English means "to cut".
Now that you've learnt what hacking is, let's learn how it is done.
(SKIP THROUGH THE BOLD IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW HOW PEOPLE DO IT AND HOW YOU CAN BECOME ONE)
There are a lot of ways by which you can hack into a website or an account on a website, but we are not going to go into that for now.
Any person with some basic and accurate knowledge about the computer can become a hacker, all you have to do is dream about being one and think of possible ways to get inside the system.
You will have to learn how the computer works, how websites process information, how information is stored on websites, how information given by websites is stored on your computer, what happens when you connect to a website, what happens when you connect to a person on the internet, and the language required to gain access to these internal systems.
Seems tough, right? It actually is.
When you can think about getting into the system, you can search for specific things that don't directly mean hacking and you will get your desired result. All you have to do is think like a criminal or a prisoner.
Let me tell a story here as to how that can help you.
Once, there was a person who was jailed because of something that he didn't do. The jail sentence was 30 years. Since the first day in prison, he thought of getting out, and breaking out of a prison is a crime. So he started thinking like a criminal, he started thinking of ways that can help him get out of prison. There were a few workshops in prison. There was a metal workshop, a bible reading, a wood workshop, a sculpting workshop, and a construction workshop.
The metal workshop didn't allow prisoners to take back anything because they knew people can use the chisel and hammer to get out.
The bible reading allowed you to take back a medium sizes bible.
The sculpting workshop allowed you to take a ceramic block,dry clay and sculpting tool if you do good in the workshop and appear everyday.
The construction workshop also didn't allow you to take back anything.
So the prisoner didn't have any choice but to work hard in the sculpting workshop as he needed something to cut the bars, he didn't know at that time how he would do that. For the first six months, he worked very hard and appeared daily and told his story to the master in the sculpting class. He told how he can't file for mistrial because he fought the case by himself. He gained the trust of the master by talking politely and showing seriousness, the master granted him the ceramic block, dry clay and sculpting tool made out of aluminum.
He took it back and saw that the block was around 10 cm tall and 5 cm broad. The sculpting tool was not sharp, but was more like a nail file. It was of the size and shape of a toothpick.
The prisoner thought that he could use it to sculpt a blade like structure and he started doing so slowly-slowly. It took him a week and it was ready, a perfect blade, with a handle at the back. He started cutting the bars in sections. 5 Hours at night and all the bars sufficient to get him out were cut and he was ready to go out.
He went out of the prison running and never came back.
In the story, the prisoner used an unusable block of ceramic and converted it into a blade. In the same way, the things that we think that can't be used for anything else except for what they are made of can used for different purposes.
To become a hacker, you've to think like a criminal. To get inside the system without being noticed.
Anyways, there are some steps that you can take to increase the security of your account.
The first thing that you should do is to put a mobile no. in your account. With a mobile number added to your account, you can do a lot of things. You can put a 2-step verification which will ask you to put a verification code that you receive in SMS in your mobile. This will prevent any other person from signing in to your account even if he/she gets to know your password. Another thing is that some people try to attempt a social engineering hack. In this, the person who is trying to access your account may click on the "Forgot your password?" link and try to get through the steps by answering questions. If he gets the answer right then he gets straight access to your account. If you attach a mobile no. to your account, the site will send an SMS to your mobile phone with the verification code and this eliminates the chances of getting to the stage of answering questions. Even if the person clicks the option where it says that you longer have access to these, it may take him/her 5 - 6 days to get to your account. And it is very rare that you don't log in withing 5 - 6 days.
On some sites they have a service which lets you put in your mobile no. to get to the questions page, it is very unlikely of a hacker to know your mobile phone if the person is not known to you.
Secondly, you should keep your information very private. You may have kept the privacy settings to allow only friends or contacts in your profile to see your information. But since, everybody is careless with accepting friend requests these days, you may not know who can hack your account anytime. The information that you need to keep private includes :
- Your Mobile Phone No.
- Your e-mail ID
- Your address
- Any information that is related to your security question
If you leave any one of these public or even disclosed to your friends/followers, then your account will always be on the verge of getting compromised on any platform.
Choose you friends wisely. While we might be accepting friend requests from people who have more than 20 Mutual Friends with us, you may never know when any one of those might be a hacker and may be working from someone else's account. So only accept friend requests from people you really know. If you don't and your account gets compromised by anyway then it'll be you who'll be responsible for that.
Set an un-guessable password. An ideal password should have numbers and special characters along with lower case and upper case letters. If this is hard to remember then you can put something like the name of your favorite thing and your mobile no. after that. It is easy to remember as well as tough to guess. This might save you from a lot of social engineering hacks.
Do not use any public wi-fi. Accessing any public wi-fi network is just like leaving your doors unlocked at home and that too at night.
Logging in from any public wi-fi network will let any hacker, even the beginners, to download files from your device and they can download all your cookies and saved passwords very easily. This will make your account accessible very easily.
That is all about how to be safe on the internet. If you feel that I missed out on something, do leave a comment below.
Follow me on Twitter : @aryanshmalviya
Like Us on Facebook : The Gadgetier
Follow us on Google+ : +The Gadgetier
IMAGE CREDITS: https://www.udemy.com/website-hacking-in-practice/
So if someone wants to look into your Facebook messages and can't because he is not you, he can hack into your account to do so.
Hacking in simple English means "to cut".
Now that you've learnt what hacking is, let's learn how it is done.
(SKIP THROUGH THE BOLD IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW HOW PEOPLE DO IT AND HOW YOU CAN BECOME ONE)
There are a lot of ways by which you can hack into a website or an account on a website, but we are not going to go into that for now.
Any person with some basic and accurate knowledge about the computer can become a hacker, all you have to do is dream about being one and think of possible ways to get inside the system.
You will have to learn how the computer works, how websites process information, how information is stored on websites, how information given by websites is stored on your computer, what happens when you connect to a website, what happens when you connect to a person on the internet, and the language required to gain access to these internal systems.
Seems tough, right? It actually is.
When you can think about getting into the system, you can search for specific things that don't directly mean hacking and you will get your desired result. All you have to do is think like a criminal or a prisoner.
Let me tell a story here as to how that can help you.
Once, there was a person who was jailed because of something that he didn't do. The jail sentence was 30 years. Since the first day in prison, he thought of getting out, and breaking out of a prison is a crime. So he started thinking like a criminal, he started thinking of ways that can help him get out of prison. There were a few workshops in prison. There was a metal workshop, a bible reading, a wood workshop, a sculpting workshop, and a construction workshop.
The metal workshop didn't allow prisoners to take back anything because they knew people can use the chisel and hammer to get out.
The bible reading allowed you to take back a medium sizes bible.
The sculpting workshop allowed you to take a ceramic block,dry clay and sculpting tool if you do good in the workshop and appear everyday.
The construction workshop also didn't allow you to take back anything.
So the prisoner didn't have any choice but to work hard in the sculpting workshop as he needed something to cut the bars, he didn't know at that time how he would do that. For the first six months, he worked very hard and appeared daily and told his story to the master in the sculpting class. He told how he can't file for mistrial because he fought the case by himself. He gained the trust of the master by talking politely and showing seriousness, the master granted him the ceramic block, dry clay and sculpting tool made out of aluminum.
He took it back and saw that the block was around 10 cm tall and 5 cm broad. The sculpting tool was not sharp, but was more like a nail file. It was of the size and shape of a toothpick.
The prisoner thought that he could use it to sculpt a blade like structure and he started doing so slowly-slowly. It took him a week and it was ready, a perfect blade, with a handle at the back. He started cutting the bars in sections. 5 Hours at night and all the bars sufficient to get him out were cut and he was ready to go out.
He went out of the prison running and never came back.
In the story, the prisoner used an unusable block of ceramic and converted it into a blade. In the same way, the things that we think that can't be used for anything else except for what they are made of can used for different purposes.
To become a hacker, you've to think like a criminal. To get inside the system without being noticed.
Anyways, there are some steps that you can take to increase the security of your account.
The first thing that you should do is to put a mobile no. in your account. With a mobile number added to your account, you can do a lot of things. You can put a 2-step verification which will ask you to put a verification code that you receive in SMS in your mobile. This will prevent any other person from signing in to your account even if he/she gets to know your password. Another thing is that some people try to attempt a social engineering hack. In this, the person who is trying to access your account may click on the "Forgot your password?" link and try to get through the steps by answering questions. If he gets the answer right then he gets straight access to your account. If you attach a mobile no. to your account, the site will send an SMS to your mobile phone with the verification code and this eliminates the chances of getting to the stage of answering questions. Even if the person clicks the option where it says that you longer have access to these, it may take him/her 5 - 6 days to get to your account. And it is very rare that you don't log in withing 5 - 6 days.
On some sites they have a service which lets you put in your mobile no. to get to the questions page, it is very unlikely of a hacker to know your mobile phone if the person is not known to you.
Secondly, you should keep your information very private. You may have kept the privacy settings to allow only friends or contacts in your profile to see your information. But since, everybody is careless with accepting friend requests these days, you may not know who can hack your account anytime. The information that you need to keep private includes :
- Your Mobile Phone No.
- Your e-mail ID
- Your address
- Any information that is related to your security question
If you leave any one of these public or even disclosed to your friends/followers, then your account will always be on the verge of getting compromised on any platform.
Choose you friends wisely. While we might be accepting friend requests from people who have more than 20 Mutual Friends with us, you may never know when any one of those might be a hacker and may be working from someone else's account. So only accept friend requests from people you really know. If you don't and your account gets compromised by anyway then it'll be you who'll be responsible for that.
Set an un-guessable password. An ideal password should have numbers and special characters along with lower case and upper case letters. If this is hard to remember then you can put something like the name of your favorite thing and your mobile no. after that. It is easy to remember as well as tough to guess. This might save you from a lot of social engineering hacks.
Do not use any public wi-fi. Accessing any public wi-fi network is just like leaving your doors unlocked at home and that too at night.
Logging in from any public wi-fi network will let any hacker, even the beginners, to download files from your device and they can download all your cookies and saved passwords very easily. This will make your account accessible very easily.
That is all about how to be safe on the internet. If you feel that I missed out on something, do leave a comment below.
Follow me on Twitter : @aryanshmalviya
Like Us on Facebook : The Gadgetier
Follow us on Google+ : +The Gadgetier
IMAGE CREDITS: https://www.udemy.com/website-hacking-in-practice/
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