10 Ways a Hacker Targets Your Pii

SOURCES:

• ACFE

• Kevin Mitnick

The Stats

Since earning the Certified Fraud Examiner designation I’ve had the opportunity to review and gain access to some of the most frightening statistics on recent progress by rank and file hackers. This article was further inspired by the contributions of Kevin Mitnick, considered Houdini of hackers, converted white hat. Mitnick offers rare insights, inside details and protections for your personal identifying information (pii).

There were 1,862 publicly reported data breaches in 2022 impacting 422 million individuals — the highest number ever for a single year.

INTRODUCTION

This List of 10 Hacks is inspired by Kevin Mitnick, Houdini of hackers, converted white hat, who offers rare insights and inside details. Do this to prevent take-over of your banking notification email account!

Kevin makes a salient point that phishing is about manipulation and trickery. Listen up. This trickery can be achieved in a myriad of venues other than your accounts! Phishing attacks upon your heightened emotions on social or world events — outside of your banking — induces you to click.

Kevin Mitnick says:

“Whenever there’s a natural disaster or other major event, we see this same type of behavior”

Let the list jog your memory and apprise you of habits and possible weak spots in YOUR defense (says banking security):

Brute Force :

Using software a hacker systematically guesses all possible combinations of characters until they find the correct password.

Keyloggers:

Malicious software installed on a computer is recording your keystrokes, capturing passwords as you type them. If you do a lot of downloading of apps, videos, or songs you’re at high risk, for this malware comes with it!

Phishing:

This involves use of deceptive emails or websites to TRICK users into revealing their passwords voluntarily. Social engineering is often part of this.

Data Breaches:

If a website or service you use suffers a data breach, hackers might obtain a database containing hashed or even plaintext passwords.

Man-in-the-Middle:

Less common but doable attacks: hacker intercepts communications between a user and a website, capturing their login credentials as it’s transmitted.

ALERT!

Best hacker alerts and advice:

Tell-Tails

If you see any of the following tell-tales I’ve compromised your email account:

• Overheating. Some malicious apps or invasive adware apps will establish an invisible conduit for data streaming from your phone, called “tapping”. Overheating is often evidence of tapping.

• Battery Usage. If the battery in your phone is consistently draining or low, you need to check which apps are running in the background.

• Increased Mobile Data Usage. If your data usage is inordinate or increases dramatically, ascertain exactly which app is suspect.

• Odd Messages. A strange series of non-alphanumeric characters or symbols appears in an SMS message. Don’t ignor this! Likewise, if family or friends say they received odd messages from you. This suggests you’ve been tapped or compromised.

• Forwarding Codes. The code #21#, then tap dial on the iPhone reveals whether you might be forwarding calls or messages. On the Android device, try the codes #67#, #62#, or #21#, then tap the dial icon.

REMEMBER!

If I have your email, I’ve got at least one method your bank uses to notify you of a compromise and I can squelch these alerts. It’s annoying, frightening actually.

You’ve Been Hacked!

The following lists definitive signs of a hacked email account:

Email is Hacked:

- You’re not receiving any emails, even emails you send to yourself. So, you can do this test now.

Your Contacts:

- Your Yahoo Mail is sending spam to your contacts.

Check Your Log-ins:

- You see logins from unexpected locations on your recent activity page.

Account Settings:

- Your account info or mail settings were changed without your knowledge.

“So, how am I getting your pii? I may entice you to click a link leading you to a spoof — a site that looks and works exactly like your online bank site.”

“I lull you into complacency, trick you to login. And here’s the scary part: You clicked on the field, and stopped. You didn’t even key in your username....”

“Well good, right? No, it may be too late. Your browser is set to suggest a username or worse autofills the field. The spoofed malicious site is running a script written using Python or Javascript and has already captured your username suggestion and associated password key for that bank.” — anonymous white hat hacker

Conclusion

There are free ways to check out your personal identifying info (Pii). The largely free site haveibeenpwned.com is one good place to start. Caution: You might be shocked at results of your search!

The reputable organization Aura.com — not to be confused with Aura-Search (which is intrusive adware) offers a paid service to check for any compromised email accounts or passwords.

Learn more at Whooph.com

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