How do you recognize cracking?

Whether or not it’s possible to recognize cracking depends on what’s being cracked. For example, software companies likely won’t know if someone has cracked their software. Likewise, students using the public Wi-Fi at the corner café won’t know if someone has cracked the Wi-Fi network and is capturing their vulnerable data, such as banking info or passwords. That said, it might be obvious that your computer has been cracked if your friends and colleagues start getting phishing emails from your email address.

How do you stop cracking?

Trying to stop cracking is like trying to stop crime itself, and if Batman can’t do it, we don’t have much hope of that happening anytime soon. As long as people with criminal intent and the skills needed to crack into computer systems exist, cracking will persist. So is there no hope?  Of course there is!  Here are a few tips:

• Use a strong password
• Don’t open any attachments sent from suspicious email addresses
• Never send your banking info or credit card numbers via email
• Don’t use public Wi-Fi for any activities you want to keep private

I always say that not being a victim to cyber crime is as simple as using common sense.  Click bait is exactly that.  It’s designed to entice you to click on it with either scare tactics or promise of something cool.  Don’t be a “Clicky McClickerton” as I like to say.  Know what you are clicking on and trust the source you are getting data from.