Yen Kai's Idea Cast

It seems strangely coincidental, my webhosting account was suspended for almost a full day due to the presence of suspicious malicious scripts (which were actually uploaded by myself), and this happens around the same time that 400 DBS/POSB customers experienced ATM fraud and NUS servers were hacked into.

I’m reminded of being asked, more than once, to help clean up PCs affected by Trojan or Viruses. Those were the days when pop-up blockers were not yet built into browsers and people clicked “Yes” or “Ok” to whatever pop-up window that appeared to get the annoyance out of the way as quickly as possible, not knowing that by doing so they were allowing rogue programs to invade their PC. Fast forward to today, people are still doing the same, but now on their phone. They couldn’t be bothered to understand what permissions were being requested by the Apps they were installing (on Android phones). As i have foreseen, phones are now being targeted. In fact, mobile phone manufacturers themselves secretly collect data about you.

It is almost impossible to avoid having your private data being collected against your will. Some Apps are useful only if you grant to it the permission to access your most private data. For example, Messaging Apps must have access to your contacts list and your messages. Without strong policing, what’s to prevent such an App from eavesdropping on you since technically you’ve granted it the ability to do so?

The implications of a security breach typically range from loss of privacy to loss of money. Too many people had their email accounts compromised and abused for sending out spam. When a hacker gains control of a server of an organization, it could mean drastic losses of business, reputation and productivity.

If you use any IT equipment (PC, laptop, phone etc.) or own any online account (email, instant messaging, Facebook etc.), you should not be complacent about the risks of unauthorized access. I’ve heard stories of instant messaging accounts being compromised, whereby the hacker masquerades as the the victim and tries to borrow money from the victim's contacts. (Update: check this out..)

It pays to understand more about how you can protect yourself, rather than to presume such nasty things wouldn’t happen to you.