You Should Care About Cyber Security

The mom whose laptop was locked down by a ransomware attack

Two days before Thanksgiving, Alina’s mother got hit by a cyber attack. 5,726 files got locked by CryptoWall, an encryption malware so powerful it is technologically impossible to break open. Alina’s mom contacted the attacker through the malware’s communication feature and told her she could pay to get her files back. Despite backing up her files 6 months ago, she decided that losing half a year’s worth of photos, documents and other files was too much, and so decided to pay the ransom. The price to unlock her files was 500$ in the first week and 1000$ in the second one, after which the files would be deleted. Payment was to be done in Bitcoin, an obscure and unfamiliar process which she had to learn on the fly. Because of a major snowstorm that closed down the banks, Alina’s mom couldn’t pay the ransom in the first week, and ended up having to plead with her attacker to not increase the price to 1,000$. Surprisingly, he accepted and gave her the key to unlock her files.

Hackers took control of his car

Andy Greenberg, a senior writer at Wired Technology Magazine, once took part in a ground-breaking experiment which tested how car hacking could be done. What did the experiment involve? His car would be remotely hacked while he was behind the wheel. As Andy drove on the highway, the hackers started to take control of the car. First they activated the air vents and windshield wipers. Next, the transmission was cut and finally, they remotely activated the breaks. And they did all of these things with Andy behind the wheel. The experiment uncovered a flaw in Jeep’s cars which was later fixed. Since cars are getting more and more connected to the Internet than before, such attacks are inevitable.

His WoW account got hacked twice

Heavy gamers are favourite targets for cyber criminals, since they don’t want to lose the time and money invested in a character and are willing to pay the ransom. This guy had his WoW account hacked and lost all his progress. And it happened to him not once, but twice! To add insult to injury, the hacker created a new character named “Thanx” as a sign of appreciation for his “efforts” as a victim. Fortunately for him, Blizzard customer service agreed to recover his account and all the progress it had on it.