The Power Of Hacking 

Hacking is one of the biggest threats to both personal and national security in the modern age, but are also hackers using their skill to help others rather than causing harm harm. Hacking is a widespread problem that is found across the globe. The impacts of hacking can be devastating to businesses, the government, personal security, and even things that might be unexpected such as hospitals and 9-1-1 services (Cyber). The initial thought of many is for hackers to target large banks or businesses that are wealthy, but there is another item of value that criminals are after: information. Since hospitals have ". . . millions of patient records now in digital form, health care's biggest security challenge in 2015 will be keeping personally identifiable information from falling through security cracks and into the hands of hackers," supporting that hospitals hold much vital patient information that the criminals could steal and use for several types of fraudulent activity such as holding it for ransom or even using for identity theft (International).

The people committing cyber crimes through hacking “. . . runs the gamut—from computer geeks looking for bragging rights…to businesses trying to gain an upper hand in the marketplace by hacking competitor websites, from rings of criminals wanting to steal your personal information and sell it on black markets…to spies and terrorists looking to rob our nation of vital information or launch cyber strikes,” showing that there is a wide range of people with a variety of different reasons for why they are hacking (Cyber). Since such a great deal of cybercriminals carry out their malicious activity through hacking, assumptions are made that all hackers are dangerous and criminals but that simply is not true. White hat hackers are people who use their skill for positive things such as finding security flaws for companies and institutions before the bad guys take advantage of them. Tommy DeVoss learned his lesson when hacking into the government landed him in a federal jail, but this taught him to use his skills in the best way, “He has found a solution in bug bounties, where corporate entities open their systems to the stress test of an attempted hack. Those that break through and identify a weakness get the prize. Everybody wins in this mock crime: the hacker still gets their buzz, the business tightens its security and nobody has their data stolen,” supporting the idea that while some hackers have malicious intents, other hackers can be a force of good and help increase security by finding the holes in it and do it for fun or the incentives (Erasmus). Hackers can range from criminals to bored teenagers, but how does someone know they are being digitally attacked and how can they safeguard against it?

Nearly 75% of Americans have been a victim of some kind of cybercrime and it is a devastating problem in today’s society, but luckily there are many ways to prevent it. One way for one to protect their digital safety is to “A good rule to follow is never open attachments unless you are 120% sure of where they came from. One of the easiest ways for hackers to download malicious code onto victim computers is by sending emails with virus-laden files. A frequent way companies get hacked is by one unsuspecting employee downloading malicious software that infiltrates the entire network,” supporting that simply being cautious of attachments and what is being opened on someone’s computer can be a huge step in keeping computers and information secure (Weissman).