Just a day ago a dear friend received an email claiming to have hacked her email account and now had placed malware on her computer thus gaining access to her data. A few months ago I had to do a wipe and repave on one of my computers due to ransomware. I'm sure we all have seen things like this so let me ask what do these events have in common? They all try to extort money from the victim through threats or depriving you of something until you pay a ransom. In other words they resort to "Extortion".
What is extortion? The definition of extortion is, "Extortion is a criminal offense of obtaining money, property, or services from an individual or institution, through coercion." Yes, you read right. It is a "Criminal Offense". There are laws against this offense in most countries around the world but the Cyber version is not taken seriously by most jurisdictions. We have all heard the excuse that these threats are not serious. They are only empty threats. Tell that to all of the folk who had ransomware and lost important data. Who can say that my friends email and computer weren't compromised. I assure you that this was not the case but the possibility exists.
Even though you can't prevent attempts, there are things you can do to make it harder for these criminals to succeed.
What is extortion? The definition of extortion is, "Extortion is a criminal offense of obtaining money, property, or services from an individual or institution, through coercion." Yes, you read right. It is a "Criminal Offense". There are laws against this offense in most countries around the world but the Cyber version is not taken seriously by most jurisdictions. We have all heard the excuse that these threats are not serious. They are only empty threats. Tell that to all of the folk who had ransomware and lost important data. Who can say that my friends email and computer weren't compromised. I assure you that this was not the case but the possibility exists.
Even though you can't prevent attempts, there are things you can do to make it harder for these criminals to succeed.
- Never blindly click on email links or open untrusted attachments.
- Keep your operating system, applications, and security software patched and up to date.
- Backup your data
- Keep usernames and passwords secure.
- Use strong passwords and change them on a regular basis.