The application of technology has cut through all the areas of life. From businesses to religion down to education organizations, the use of technology has actually brought about a world shift, making it possible for us to now carry out our everyday activities in a more advance realm. With so much going on in our universe, information storage, dissemination, and management is now very paramount. That is why most companies and organizations now have databases that hold their company’s profiles and that of the client’s in order to aid a good flow of activities. 

Just like every other thing else that have their own dark sides, a lot of infamous practices have actually hit our world with the origin of technology. From elusive hacking to cyber grifting, so many things are actually out there, using the application of technology to hack into people’s competitions and creating chaos in our universe – that the only way out is to protect our digital lives in order to escape their fishing nets. 

Speaking about hacking, have you ever considered several ways through which your computer information could get hacked? Let’s find out!   

Below are ways through which someone can actually hack into your computer, steal your identity or your financial information without you ever knowing it — until it becomes too late. 

Drive-by-download is a type of download that occur automatically without your consent. It could still mean an authorized download but you don’t actually have an idea of what you are downloading. This usually occur when you visit a hacked or a hacker’s website. The website may automatically download a spyware or malware into your devices through which hackers can easily monitor your activities on the site or phish some of your important details.     

Hackers can use this method to steal the cookies information stored in a user’s browser when the user visits a particular websites. They can do this when they realize any flaws in the javascript codes of that website. By stealing the cookies information, they can compromise user’s behavior without the owner of the website even knowing a bit of it.   

If you must use a free public WIFI, be sure to use a VPN (Virtual Private Network). Do not trust any free WiFi anywhere because you never know if a hacker is parading around around the WiFi’s access point. When a hacker compromises a WiFi’s access point, they can scan your device for any vulnerabilities.  

Hackers have gotten pretty good with their tricks these days, they can send you mails that mimic messages from a trusted websites or an organization like your bank, making you perform some task that may latter-on, hang your neck in the noose. Be careful what you open or the links you click on in your emails. Most of these vulnerabilities, come from our behavior with use of social media. Most hackers can monitor the way you use social media and because of that, they can compile some malicious messages to your emails with malicious links to their infamous website where they can phish out some important details of you.  

These days we just can’t go through the stress of remembering things anymore, that’s why we use the same username and password for almost everything we’ve signed up for - but this wrong digitally. Do not use the same passwords and usernames for multiple account, if one get compromised, it could pave the way for others to be too. Try to use a unique password for every website account you have. Although these may seem like something very hard to do, but it is very necessary. Have a varying usernames and passwords however, if you want to keep things simple, you can make them very related but different.   

There are lots of humble looking website that are out there. They lure you into perform a task with a promise of rewarding you richly. Be very careful, don’t be too in a haste to be hacked because most of the time their intentions are very uncanny. They could installing a malware into your device and steal your details. After performing a task with, they could tell you that you’ve won a prize and that you should provide your bank details to claim your prize. Be very vigilant!

Never use any unknown USB or card readers on your PC. They could contain lots of zombies that can infect your computer. Always have an up-to-date antivirus installed.   

When your computer or your operating system is too old fashioned, you could easily be a victim of circumstance. You can suffer from being hacked easily when you don’t update your operating system software. Outdated operating system prevent you from enjoying the latest versions of other applications in your computer which altogether put at the risk of compromise.