Dear visitors of (abouelmagd tech احمد ابو المجد 2) blog, we talked in a previous article about how to keep your devices and data protected. And we mentioned 8 golden tips to keep your devices and data protected. Please go back and read it. Today we are going to mention the most common reasons for data breaches and how to avoid them.
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| The 6 most common causes of data breaches and how to avoid them |
Data breaches generate billions of dollars annually for hackers and hackers, as statistics indicate that cyberattacks cost companies up to $6 billion annually, and despite the significant development of cyberattacks, there are many common methods and methods that hackers rely on to breach data. Whether from ordinary people or large companies and institutions in this topic, we discuss with you the 6 most important methods that are used to hack data, in addition to how to avoid them and protect yourself from them easily.
1. Malware
The term "malware" includes a lot of malicious and dangerous programs that negatively affect computers in many ways, and these programs include ransomware, Trojan horses, adware, and many other types of viruses, and these malicious programs harm electronic devices in many ways Among them is the penetration and leakage of data, for example, ransomware encrypts all data and then requests a sum of money in exchange for decrypting those files, and if the user refuses to pay the money, then this data is leaked on the Internet, sold on the dark web, or deleted completely.
At present, devices can be infected with ransomware viruses easily through many and varied ways, including random links, malicious attachments, and email attachments, as hackers hide these viruses among email attachments that may appear normal and harmless, and viruses are also attached to common files. Which are frequently downloaded by users, especially hacked programs, stolen games, and other files.
2. Human errors
Unfortunately, human errors are among the most common reasons that lead to data and file penetration. Although devices can be infected with viruses in many and varied ways, human errors are the main and essential element that leads to the infection of devices in the first place, through the user downloading a malicious file or Mining, for example or granting sensitive permissions and permissions to unreliable programs and other errors that the user may unintentionally make, and at present statistics indicate that more than 82% of data breaches involve human errors, according to a report issued by Verizon America for the year 2022.
Human errors made by individual users or even companies and organizations also vary, including not updating programs and operating systems, leaving devices open in a public place, or connecting the computer to any USB cable or unreliable storage media, and in fact, this can lead to hacking the entire computer in the blink of an eye.
3. Weak passwords
Many users set fixed and specific passwords for many of their accounts, and this makes it easy to access those accounts and reduces the possibility of forgetting the password. However, this matter represents a great weakness that can be exploited by hackers, as if you set a password Weak passage of many of your accounts and enables someone to access them, he will be able to access your various accounts and not just one account, which may lead to a lot of severe damage.
To avoid this problem, you must set different passwords for your accounts and at the same time they are strong and complex passwords that are difficult to guess, and fortunately, this matter has become very easy with password management programs that are widely available at present as you are using these programs You will need to memorize only one password which is the master password of the password manager itself, and this program will set strong and complex passwords for your accounts and save them for you.
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4. Device theft
Another very clear reason for data breaches is the theft of computers originally or electronic devices in general, for example, if someone saves their most important data on an external hard drive or a USB flash, then this data will be vulnerable to penetration or leakage if it falls In in secure hands, and unfortunately, some people specialize in stealing devices only to access the data on them within companies and institutions. It is also worth noting that data leakage from devices may occur when the device is sent to maintenance as well.
5. Social engineering
Social engineering is one of the most popular methods of deception that can be used to gain access to sensitive data of users, including passwords, bank accounts, etc., and social engineering is based on trying to access user data through direct persuasion and collecting as much information as possible about The victim, either through phone calls, e-mails, or other methods.
For example, someone may contact you and claim to be affiliated with your bank and ask you for your data to activate the account, etc., to hack the bank account. It is also possible that you will receive an email that contains a data form or a registration page. Fake entry to one of the famous sites, and as soon as these forms or pages are filled out, the data is sent to this intruder immediately.
6. Inadequate security measures
At present, cybercrime and hacking operations are very advanced, as hackers develop very strong and complex methods that can bypass simple protection methods, and therefore weak and insufficient security measures can lead to the penetration of your data easily, and this includes not using protection and antivirus software As well as not using a VPN when connecting to public Wi-Fi networks or ignoring the two-factor authentication system, which provides a large percentage of security for accounts, and other things that lead to poor security and protection of devices.
