Mind the Hack

Mind the hack, whether it is a potential hack or a hack that took place, mind the hack and never look back.

The title of this article, “Mind the Hack” denotes an infinite multidimensional construct. With its many angles and innovations in the picture, “Mind the Hack” is indeed a never-ending story with its many respective angles to further learn about.

Many of the more cybersecurity cautious internet users typically focus on how to check for Trojan viruses and other malware, including robust VPN solutions, firewalls, and other vital ingredients to the cyber security and privacy mix. These users are simply NOT MINDING THE HACK or not “minding” enough of it.

Let’s explore some of the dimensions of “Mind the Hack,” By understanding them better, you can add them to your cyber security toolbox to accompany you on your cyberspace journey.

 

Dimension One: Mind the Hacker’s Mind

The hacker’s mind plays a significant role in understanding cyber security and privacy breaches, especially when the gain and motivation are not monetary.

The psychology of the hacker is critical to understand, especially in gaining more significant insights into types of cyberattacks and their respective motives and dynamics. A better understanding of this area should contribute significantly and upgrade the “Mind the Hack” tool in your cyber security toolbox.

This is just the tip of the cyber berg. Imagine the amount of research that cyber security firms need to look into just to understand the psychological profiles of the various types of cybercriminals. This is just one dimension of “Mind the Hack.”

 

Dimension Two: Mind the Malware

The code behind malware or malicious applications can tell us a lot about the cybercriminal’s intentions. The code can be used as a tool by cyber security researchers to predict the next wave of malware, including companies developing firewalls to improve their DPI algorithms, also known as Deep Packet Inspection Algorithms. These algorithms will look for characteristics and anomalies in packets that are smaller fragments of a more significant set of data, resulting in those packets getting dropped and never entering a given private network.

 

Dimension Three: Mind Your Mind

This dimension relates to a significant contributor to successful cyberattacks. That is psychological manipulations used by cybercriminals as a single tool or a tool amongst many to execute cyberattacks from simplistic to elaborate and grand in proportion. This dimension is more widely known as social engineering, brain hacking and mind hacking.

It is enough that a hacker knows that you work for an organization of interest and has the interest to access your company laptop, for example, in an attempt to gain more intelligence for a more elaborate attack. Social engineering can be super stealthy; sometimes, the hacker could be a person already “close” to you, which you would least suspect, such as a relative or “friend.”

Several scenarios could play out in a social engineering scheme:

 

• Physical 🡪 Cyber: Social engineering scheme taking place in person with the intention to target a cyber entity such as a private company cloud.
• Cyber 🡪 Physical: An online social engineering scheme with the intent to commit a physical crime such as robbery or break-in.
• Cyber 🡪 Cyber: Social engineering scheme online, for example via a dating platform such as Tinder to hack a cyber entity such as a company’s private cloud.