So it's come to my attention that I haven't written anything recently about my field of work. I think most people who follow me know from past post that I work in... let's just call it, "network security."

And with that, I try to generate some good karma for myself by lending helpful tips to you fine people about protecting yourself against a hacker's tomfoolery.

But I'm going to let you guys in on a dirty little secret... something that you might even take offense to. Ready?

"A hacker is only as effective as his/her target allows them to be!"

"What in the hell does that even mean?"

Basically what I'm so subtly trying to say is, most thieves get in through the backdoor... that YOU leave open!

In "network security" a Backdoor is a basically a portal (or vulnerability) in your system that hacker uses to sneak in (usually undetected) and take whatever information they want!

Real Talk For A Minute?

Look guys, we are in the "year of our Lord," two thousand and seventeen!

This isn't the wild west days of the Internet anymore. You know, where we were "freeballing" through the web and downloading crazy shit without knowing about like malware, chatting with strangers on IRC, and making up goofy Hotmail accounts.

We should know better now. And we should be better at protecting our identities and lively-hoods! This is serious shit here!

("So now the question should be... "Okay, then how do I protect myself?")

Great question! Glad you asked! I have a few tips on how to keep that backdoor locked as tight as possible.

Lets start with something simple:

Digital Ninjitsu

I always tell my nearest and dearest that their goal should always be to be as invisible as possible!

What do I mean by this?

1. There should be nothing in your browser history older than a day! You should clear your history pretty much every day.

2. Any files in your computer with ANY personal information needs to backed-up to a flash drive then deleted from your computer!

Basically what I'm saying is, there should be no evidence you ever even used that computer!

Next up:

Password Mumbo Jumbo

Without getting too technical, if your password is under 15 characters long, you are making it too easy for a hacker to obtain it. It should also be as nonsensical as possible.

Cracking a password with "brute force" (it's a hacker term... don't let it confuse you) takes time! Especially depending on the system the hacker is using. The longer and confusing the password is, the harder it is for them to attack you.

Just trust me on this.

Also, you should change this password every 3 months!

Question Everything

This is going to be a little more harder to explain. There something in the field we call a "social engineering hack!" It's pretty complicated to explain to the average user, but I will try to make it easy for you.

SEH is basically a term for finding a weakness in the user, NOT the computer! It's all about human error!

So for example:

Getting an email from your "cable company" or "Facebook" or "your bank" with a link for you to click on and SIGN IN to their page to check on your account.

Except the problem is, these are all fake pages! And when you sign in, guess what? Yep, they now have your password!

Be aware of where you click and where you sign into. If you receive an email telling you to click on a link and sign in, call your bank or cable company or whoever supposedly sent it and make sure it was from them!

Just remember:

There are more specific attacks I can talk about like "phishing" and "piggybacking," but I'll let you do the research on that if you want to learn more.

Lets Wrap This Up!

There are a lot of other ways to secure your system that are pretty involved and complicated, but the things I've listed here will more than do the job!

Look my lovelies, the world can be a bad place with bad people! For examples of this you should read my post about the "Dark Web" (I've posted a link below).

We have to be better, sharper, and urgent about protecting our information. Cause once it's stolen, you will go through Hell to get some semblance of normalcy again!

Hope this was helpful my lovelies! If you thought this was cool or somewhat interesting, would so appreciate an upvote and a resteem!

CHECK OUT THE LINK BELOW FOR RELATED MATERIAL!

Facebook's Security Is Like Guarding Your House With A Cat!

Dark Web Vs. Deep Web... And All The Weird Shit In Between!

Google Isn't The Enemy, But It Damn Sure Is A Problem!