Ask questions like why would someone target me or what's the point of a hacker taking over my PC or
my account.
All these are good questions.
The thing you have to realize is is no longer a human being that is actually attacking you a human being
is written or even now bought automated programs then let loose to hunt down vulnerable software without
human beings need to waste their time at all.
They effectively cast huge nets out over the Internet in order to find what is vulnerable.
Which means you and I probably just as likely targets as anyone else.
You will probably already have been a target if you didn't already know for example your internet router
will more than likely be scanned every day to look for their abilities.
I'm sure you've probably received spam emails and then there phishing attacks potentially where they're
trying to get you to download a virus or go to a site where there's a virus or malware and you've definitely
been to Web sites that have been attacked or attempted to be attacked or have been compromised.
So we're all potentially victims or we're all potentially targets additional to this.
You have someone or some organization that could be specifically targeting you.
And this is more serious in the military.
This is referred to as the advanced persistent threat or a p t.
This could be anything from for example you know an X partner trying to get access to your Facebook
to maybe live in a country where there's some sort of totalitarian government.
And they're trying to look at everything that you do.
The situation will be unique to you.
Most people only need to concern themselves with not getting caught in the large net cast by the many
criminal hacking groups.
You can see in front of me now is a threat intelligence monitored by Knauss.
What they've done is they've deliberately set up vulnerable servers which are known as honeypots to
monitor the behavior of hackers and cyber criminals so they can understand the behavior and the new
things that they're doing and the trends.
And this is just a tiny number of servers.
Imagine if this represented all of the attacks on the Internet why do they bother with all this effort.
It must be worth it to them.
Generally the motive for wanting to access your accounts steal your identity take control of your PC
is money.
The odds edge cases where it relates to political or moralistic motives but mostly it's all about the
almighty dollar.
But you might be thinking how do they turn my PC or account into money.
I'll show you.
CONTOURI McAfee report for 45 billion dollars annually is lost to cybercrime a year that equates to
about 266 billion UK pounds.
So crime does pay an especially for people living in poorer countries where you can see here in front
of you is all of the various ways in which your PC could be useful to a cyber criminal.
Web hosting for example they can use your PC as a web server so your content perform illegal and hacking
activities form email attacks virtual goods they can sell virtual goods for currency reputation hijacking
accounts can be sold again but activities take down Web sites blackmail sites account credentials.
Again these can be sold financial credentials.
Course these can be used to gain money hostage attacks identity theft much of the trading in order to
receive currency is done in a cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin is the most popular at the moment when money can be received in semi-anonymous transfers and
cash outs.
And here's some of the examples of if they get access to your e-mail and is value to them.
So privacy related.
So stealing personal information files retail lots around here they can sell your accounts.
People are interested in buying your accounts.
They are then later used for further compromises further access to other useful things such as financial.
Just straight up transferring money out of accounts.
Buying virtual goods.
Spam harvesting employment etc. etc. etc..
Your email account is particularly juicy as a target because you can often get access to many or all
of your other accounts through it and explains why we have a very active sub criminal underground on
the Internet.
It goes without saying that we need defenses to protect ourselves against them.
If that is have anything of value to protect while we're on line but this course will guide you through
understanding and reducing your online risk to acceptable levels through easy to apply steps.
So let's get on with it.