Cybercriminals often don't choose a particular person. The victim may be selected because they responded to an ad or email, or came in contact with the criminal through some other means.
Specialized IoT search engines like Rapid7 and MITRE track vulnerabilities known to specific devices. Using yet another IoT search engine like Shodan and ZoomEye, hackers can find devices connected to the internet, geolocation, port/operating system, services/host, and IP address.
The top targets of cyber criminals are businesses that have valuable data. The more valuable the data, the more likely it is to be targeted. The same goes for companies with a lot of money or other assets that can be stolen, such as credit card numbers or bank account information.
Whatever the specific motivation, the goal is to embarrass the victim, which is usually accomplished by shining a light on things that the target would rather remain unseen. Internal emails are often a key target for hackers in this kind of attack, as are financial documents which may indicate potential wrongdoing.
Social Engineering attacks
Phishing: cybercriminals will send you an official-looking email purporting to be from one of the sites or apps you might use e.g. PayPal. In the email they will ask you to click on a link or reply to it with a certain piece of sensitive information.
Most of the hacker's primary motivation is Financial Gain. They are using a variety of methods to do the crime. Hackers use phishing attacks to collect credit card or debit card details, banking account login details, etc. Once they gain credentials they login into your account and transfer the money to their account.
Financial Institutions: It may seem obvious, but hackers often target financial institutions in hopes of exposing personal information, such as Social Security numbers, or gaining fraudulent access to financial services, such as credit cards. Savvy hackers can find any number of ins to a customer's private profile.
Hackers can target literally anybody, and if you think your data wouldn't be of much use, think again. Hackers can use your data in so many different ways, and nobody is ever completely safe. Here's how hackers steal your personal information and why they do it.
Most hackers are on the lookout for one thing: money. They may not be hunting for it directly, but that is typically the end goal of most hackers, except state-sponsored hackers that are after secret information. Bearing in mind this goal, hackers will target someone they think or know has money.
Financial, health, intellectual, and government information are the most likely to be stolen. This determines which industries are most vulnerable to cyber attacks. There's an ongoing argument about the ranking, but the five industries most targeted by cyber attackers are: Public administration.
Phishing is therefore the most popular scam used by cybercriminals.
Hackers will often use secure software such as a proxy server to hide their identity and funnel their communications through lots of different countries in order to evade detection. Other technologies like Tor and encryption enable them to add multiple layers to mask their identity.
SMS phishing, or smishing, is a mobile device-oriented phishing attack that uses text messaging to convince victims to disclose account credentials or install malware. The victim is usually asked to click on a link, call a phone number or send an email. The attacker then asks the victim to provide private data.
Hackers may obtain your information in a data breach. But they may also be able to get your information if you enter it on a public computer or go to an unsecured website — and these are just some examples of how hackers can steal your information.
Well, the short answer is yes. Hackers can gain access to your browser history in various ways: Hacking into company databases – They can get login details into your accounts like Google, which stores your Google Chrome browsing history.
SMB's are the perfect target for attackers since they don't take security seriously. Attackers have a greater chance of breaching an SMB than a large corporation. The most common attacks against SMBs are phishing, social engineering and malware attacks.
These hackers use their skills for a particular goal, such as gaining fame by bringing down a computer system, stealing money, or making a network unavailable. Some hackers focus only on gaining notoriety or defeating computer systems, and some could even have criminal intentions.
Think: Name, birthday, SSN, phone number. If it can identify, locate, or contact you, it's PII. Odds are, this is what hackers are looking for. As stolen information goes, PII is fairly malleable to a cybercriminal's whims.
Although a hacker has to be relatively close to your phone — within 67 feet — to gain information, he or she can use a device that detects your phone's radio spectrum and tracks your keystrokes. As you can imagine, your keystrokes could give away highly-classified personal information.
The 5 countries with the highest amount of breached accounts in Q3 of 2022 were Russia, France (13.8 million), Indonesia (13.2 million), the US (8.4 million) and Spain (3.9 million). These countries accounted for more than half of the total breaches globally in Q3 2022.
Cybercriminals often exhibit certain psychological traits, such as impulsivity, thrill-seeking, and a lack of empathy. These traits can lead to a lack of concern for the consequences of their actions, including the harm they may cause to individuals or businesses.