You may or may not have heard of the spate of hacker attacks recently.
Quite a few YouTube personalities in the crypto community have had their email/Bitcoin accounts stolen and lost enormous amounts of Bitcoin.
It has been suggested that this was perhaps a trick to hide or evade the Tax authorities. I can understand that thinking but I am afraid the attacks are true.
Anyone one who saw Craig Grant on videotelling of his misfortune can see he was under severe stress. Nervousness and facial sweating are hard to fake. One look on the face of Trevor James and one can see his disappointment was real. People who are suggesting they faked the hack are in a state of self denial.
I was also hacked.
No one wants to believe that such a hack can be true because quite simply it scares the living daylights out of us. It makes us feel unsafe and insecure.
I can tell right now, that everything you have seen on the movies about how good hackers are is true. Whoever hacked my computer was no amateur. I am not an expert on computers but I am no novice either. I have been working with Macs since 1990 and yet I was totally helpless against these hackers who clearly targeted me.
I do not mind telling you that the whole experience has shaken me to the core and it has taken me some time to get my life back in order, which is why I have not blogged for a while.
Almost all my email accounts were hacked and the passwords changed.
Once the hackers had my email accounts that then gave them one step towards taking over my cryptocurrency exchange accounts, such as Poloniex and Bitfinex. Both were cleaned out.
My smart phone was also hacked and was completely taken over. This meant that the two factor authenticator I had was also hopeless.
My iMac that I was using was also completely take over by the hackers in spite of the security I had on there. In desperation I wiped the Mac clean and reinstalled the system. Once the Mac was clean I went about creating new email accounts. However, within 20 minutes, the hackers had control over my computer again. WTF!!!
As I was in the process of creating new email accounts the hackers were actually blocking me while I was in the email website. Before this happened I would not have believed such as thing was even possible.
At that point I pulled the plug and went offline.
I did not go back online for two days and I contacted my nephew for help.
My nephew is a gifted programmer and regularly goes on “hacker-thons” - as he calls them.
I have spent an entire week with him learning all I can about hacking and how I can prevent such a thing from ever happening again. After all this intense learning I have finally discovered the truth of the matter.
No one is safe on the web.
I am afraid the truth is that a clever hacker can find a way into your system no matter what you do. Edward Snowden already told us this, however, as will all things in life, we never believe it until it happens to us. Those of you who are reading this, whom have have never been hacked, will probably not believe me now either.
All of us, including myself, go around living in a state of denial saying to ourselves ;“it will ever happen to me” or “the hackers will not target me because I do not have much of interest to them”
Wrong: It is not a case of if, but when, they target you. It is only a matter of time.
My nephew showed me dozens of “hacking made easy” websites where total beginners can create trojan horses, worms, viruses and malware. These online hacker programs also make it possible to hack into any computer and take it over. I have discovered that there is a huge and growing, hacking for fun culture out there. Type in “ Hack Facebook” and you will soon find dozens of specialised “Facebook hacking" websites that guarantee, yes guarantee, to hack into any Facebook account. A quick search on youtube and you can find teenagers running hacker courses and even demonstrating a live hack. What you will NOT SEE is any one them asking themselves if they should or not. They seem totally devoid of any thought of the hurt they cause to their victims. As far as they are concerned it is all part of the fun. My Facebook account was also hacked by the way.
I will not say how much or how little I lost in the hack against me but I will say that I have lost much confidence with the internet itself. The attack on my computer happened at lighting speed. I lost money yes, but that is nothing compared to the information I lost and also the confidence I have lost in internet security itself.
And it is this fear factor that I believe could very well drive people to begin to trust the banks with their Bitcoin/altcoin security.
Think about it, if we do not feel safe storing crypto-coins on our own computers, then we will look towards more secure systems.
In the olden days when people used real gold coins, ordinary folk kept having their gold coins stolen from their houses. Goldsmiths, who made the coins, had more gold than normal folk and so they made special secure rooms to store their gold - "vaults". One day a some guy had is gold coins stolen and so got the idea to ask the goldsmith if he could keep his gold in is vault. The goldsmith agreed but charged the guy rent. And so started the beginnings of modern banking. Even today, the banks still have the best security in the world and you are also insured against losing your money to robbers or hackers.
Keeping your own crypto on your computer is not safe. The recent hacks have proved this. Anything is hackable.
The banks have spotted this and I am sure they have seen the opportunity.
The banks still have the best security in the world and you are also insured against losing your money to robbers or hackers. Mark my words,dont be surprised to see banks offering specialised “crytpyo-vaults” offering their customers to store their cryptocurrency there.
The whole point of Bitcoin and crypto-currencies was to have an alternative way against the corrupt banks.
The Governments have not been able to stop Bitcoin, the banks have not been able to stop Bitcoin, the European Monetary Fund has not been able to stop Bitcoin, but now hackers could literally drive people back to the very corrupt system we all wanted changed. How ironic and how tragic
Who the hell are you?
How can one prove whom one is in a world were your entire identity can be stolen so easily?
When your email account is stolen, and the hackers change your password, and then change the phone number on that email account too, how can you then prove to the email company that it is “your” account?
The answer is, you can’t.
I have been in intense negotiations with two email companies giving them proof after proof of who I am. However now they both decided that, what I have provided , is NOT good enough. And so I must accept that I have lost those email accounts for good. In one sense I am happy that they are so strict with such things but on the other hand, it means the hackers now own my email accounts for life and there is nothing I can do about it.
Just being on the internet has now become a risk in itself.
Think about it. Imagine someone got hold of your Steemit password. That person could post whatever they wanted and people would believe it was you. Or they could drain your account and there is nothing you can do about it. Edward Snowden was right. We are not safe.
The C.I.A or the F.B.I may well have the capability to track us and hack us, but in theory they have to abide by the rules of law. OK, thanks to Snowden, we all know they break those rules. However, I can’t believe every person working or the F B I or the C.I.A can be a corrupt person. After all, Snowden himself came from there. In my younger days I once considered a career in the FBI myself because ei wanted to fight corruption. Thereofe, in theory people applying for such agencies must initially have good intentions. Workers are accountable to their superiors too. But who are the hackers accountable to?
Is it the case that we should accept that hackers now own the internet?
That they, in effect, have the keys to our lives online?
The weakest link in the chain is human-beings
Say for example someone works for a reputable anti-virus company such as Norton anti virus. I should imagine that such a person working there has high qualifications and had good references. However, as we know, faking references is easy in the hands of a clever hacker. And so, who can guarantee that an employee does not install a worm, Trojan horse, or a virus onto the virus software. I mean, honestly, how would would we know? And then we go and instal it onto our computers.
Ok, let us say, for the benefit of the doubt, that “all” the people working in an internet virus security company are in fact, honest. Do not these honest employees go out socialising on the weekends? And whom do they speak to or gossip with when they have had a few drinks? See what I mean?
Times that security risk in a company employing hundreds or even thousands of employees and you begin to see that keeping security ultra tight is damn near impossible. Any one of these programmer employees who work for reputable program companies, including Apple, could be a secret weekend hacker. I actually suspect that my Mac has hacked though my Apple ID account. How else's could anyone have hacked my Mac 20 minutes after I had wiped it clean and reinstalled?
You see, the whole thing is based on trust.
However, trusting the internet is very dangerous and it is something we all seem totally complacent about.
The entire internet security is based on two things. False trust and a denial that we ourselves will never be hacked
So what can be done?
Sadly very litte at this time.
However, after I calmed down from this whole ugly event and managed to actually get a nights sleep, I began to think more clearly. It it my nature to try and solve puzzles and problems.
And so I began to look at the situation from a different perspective.
Instead of asking: What can a hacker do? I started asking: What can a hacker NOT do?
If I accept that I live in an environment where the keys to my house can be stolen at any time, how can I survive in such an uncertain environment?
The answer is to create an environment where uncertainty plays to your advantage.
I am grateful this has happened because now I have woken up to the reality of the false security on the internet-
I am still somewhat paranoid and I am quite aware that I could be hacked again at any time, but now Iknow there are some things I can do to slow them down and make thinks some more difficult.
Many years ago I did a business course and on that course I sat next to a guy who had recently come out of jail and wanted to go straight. He had served three years for car theft. I asked him what I could do to stop thieves from stealing my car. He said: "First make sure there is nothing of value in the car. Have the best security system on your car. A thief will still be able to break in, but if there are two cars parked next to each other and one has really good security and the other has none, the thief will always go for the car with none"
Your security is only as good as your password.
There are clever code breaking tools out there that can break a simple code in three minutes flat. However, a code which has between 16 to 20 characters long, that contains comas, fullstops, semi colons numbers, is damn hard to crack.
Keep all passwords offline.
Write them down on paper.
If you use a USB to store your passwords, then unhook yourself from the web before you plug it in.
Make sure you have full oversight of what you have in your email account. Keep a track of what emails you have sent and when and whom have sent emails to you. This was one of the questions my email company asked me.
Of course,I should not tell you of other things I have leanred about internet security because I can not trust any of you can I? And this is the final sad thing about this whole sordid uncertain situation we find ourselves in.
Who of us want a world where we can not trust anyone we speak too and have to prove who we are?
The whole expereince has made me appreciate my friends so much more. My life long fiends who I went to school with. They know me. I do not need a password to access thier friendship and I do not need to show them proof of ID.
I have been told that it has been the last two years that hacking has escalated and it is only going to get worse.
The hackers are winning and they are in charge. Unless this changes were will be serious and tragic consequences to freedom online. Hackers will not only drive us back into the arms of the banks but also into the arms of Governments as we demand for them to take action.
Check your security and passwords now and make sure you have done everything you can to make yourself as secure as possible.
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Thank you for visiting my blog and a warm welcome back next time.