Can you geeks sort this out and tell us if this is important...

I read most of it.

Summary: if a computer or data is accessible on the internet, assume it can be hacked no matter how much 'protection' you have. Individual home users and most small businesses are no match for even mediocre hackers. There are so many vulnerabilities in all software that hackers can exploit to gain access. Add in the folks that open bad email attachments or links and the job is even easier.

In short, if you want to completely protect your data from hackers, unplug from the internet.

Oh, and I bet there are similar articles in China accusing the U.S. of doing the same types of attacks (and they are likely true).
 
What Cpt said...

There are plenty of folks in the world who have the aptitude, and access, to cause issues with your computer. Can they make real problems, with primary systems? Probably. Anything you can do about it? Nope. Anything that you can do to avoid it - sure, practice common sense.
 
I've always looked at it this way. The government's (all of them) and organized crime have the ability to get into almost any computer in the world. I can't protect from that. I look at what my info stored on the computer might be worth to whomever might want it and go from there. I don't ever keep financial account numbers or passwords on my computer, even in a so called vault. My offline backup is such that I have the encryption key and that key isn't stored on the backup server. I keep my software updated and have an antivirus/security suite. I wipe virtual memory on shutdown. I even wipe my free space periodically. Beyond that, if they want my vacation pictures bad enough, I guess they can have them.

Unless somebody really wants your information specifically, common sense protections should be enough. If they want random account numbers and such, they will hack a bank, credit processor, store, or credit bureau. Hacking a hundred individuals for credit card numbers is way more work than hacking one Mexican restaurant.
 
The day is coming when everyone wakes up to realize there is no internet service, at least temporarily. Whether it be from power grids been down or service being out altogether. Nobody wants to talk about it and few are planning for it either as an individual or as a business. Cloud? What cloud? Access denied!!!

That will not be a fun day.
 
Or a day when your access to the internet is based on a 'social score' the high tech companies give you...
And if you do not score enough... you loose access.

Do not laugh... China is working out the bugs of this system as we read this post.
 
Just my opinion: Google MUST be broken up... it has too much power.

OTOH... the DIMS and left will fight this... as their power base is helped by Google being leftist (and 'adjusting' what searches find... :eek: )
 
I read most of it.

Summary: if a computer or data is accessible on the internet, assume it can be hacked no matter how much 'protection' you have. Individual home users and most small businesses are no match for even mediocre hackers. There are so many vulnerabilities in all software that hackers can exploit to gain access. Add in the folks that open bad email attachments or links and the job is even easier.

In short, if you want to completely protect your data from hackers, unplug from the internet.

Oh, and I bet there are similar articles in China accusing the U.S. of doing the same types of attacks (and they are likely true).

I watched this first hand Friday.

I have a computer at work that we lease from the franchise and pay fees each month to support.

It has not worked properly since it was sent brand new in May of 2018. I inherited the responsibility to get it working again. I have called their support line many times and have gotten the run around.

Friday I was told it was our ethernet connection cord, the computer had no internet connection (they said they could see that somehow.) They would help me once I had our people run a new one, but they were closing the ticket because that would fix it... end of story.

Once I hung up, I unplugged that sucker, moved it to where our other working franchise computers are. I unplugged one of them, and attached my non functioning franchise computer and called them back.

The computer would not even let us get past the windows welcome screen to put in login and password.

Generally we have to have the computer open and we remote in the tech guys.

This second call I made on Friday, I got a different guy who was awesome. He saw my problem was not that the internet was not connected/working. He identified that the computer was now on a new line, which I confirmed. About that time, my cursor starts to move around. Without remoting him in, he was in my computer! Holy Batman.

He opened up a whole bunch of programing areas, re-configured a bunch a stuff, ran some test and pronounced that it had hardware issues. This Computer was new in May, and has never worked properly. Has been re-imaged 2 times but still wont work... now I have to get IBM to come out.

That was awesome/scary to see someone take control of a computer that I could not even get to start with authorized passwords.
 
They are probably using something like Logmein that gives them access when the computer is online without requiring you to grant them access.
 
I have 'team viewer' on my box...
That is... the exe file is there. When I want it to run, I install it. When we are done, I un-install it... :)

It is kinda strange watching on the screen as someone else does all kinds of things...
However it is a LOT easier to get the computer straightened out by a friend... if he can just log in... than getting them over to my house.
AND... I can do a lot of the leg-work... and they can just do a few of the things I do not know how to do.

ON computers: Clark Howard says to have a Chromebook that one uses ONLY for financial stuff (bank logins, CC logins, trading account, etc)...
NO email, NO internet surfing, NOTHING other than the financial stuff...
And turn it off and remove the ethernet cable when you are done.
This way... the really important stuff is not even on the box that might be compromised.
 
They are probably using something like Logmein that gives them access when the computer is online without requiring you to grant them access.
Interesting... I am so out of my element on all this. I just want to buy a computer and have it work. I hate having to speak with the support line people for help. This guy was pretty good... he said he has been doing this job for 20 years.
 
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