Data is collateral gold. Did you hear about Cambridge Analytica and the involved election scandal of 2016? Information is a hot commodity regularly traded in digital sectors, and that’s not going to change any time soon. We’re in the information age. If you weren’t aware, that’s got some surprising implications.
For example, when it comes to “white hat” and “black hat” technology, it turns out the two are neck and neck. In 2021, cybercrime is predicted to hit an impact of about $6 trillion a year. Presently, the official “technology” economy is valued at approximately $5 trillion a year. These figures are separated by prediction and time. When you average things out, they’re essentially neck and neck.
If you’re going to keep your devices safe, you’re going to have to be proactive about it. Never download third-party apps, as these generally tend to be vehicles for hackers. Third-party apps are sometimes developed specifically as a means of sneaking a Trojan virus into a network or a network area.
In the fourth quarter of 2016, almost the entirety of the northeast coast was impacted by a DDoS, or Distributed Denial of Service, attack. Essentially, Trojan malware hid in third-party apps, and when the time was amenable to the cybercriminals, they activated the attack. The third-party software used smartphones to “assault” sites until they crashed.
Varying Malicious Software Threats
Additionally, there is spyware, ransomware, and other viral software out there which may not impact big corporations by using your device as an individual pixel in an assault array. Some viruses just watch you and find ways of siphoning away resources from you through behavior or data collection. It’s absolutely integral that you carefully avoid being so ill-used.
Apps like Say Android are official and known to be trustworthy. This app and similar apps are the kind you can rely on, and you might use them as a template to help inform you as you decide whether some other app is worth using.
What makes sense is losing app “weight”. You don’t want your smartphones, tablets, or laptops to be “obese” with a lot of “junk food apps” of the third-party variety. These clog up information arteries, siphoning data from the CPU “heart” of your devices, causing your systems to seize up much like an individual experiencing cardiac arrest.
The tactics that make sense are those that involve carefully monitoring your online data use. Do you have devices with little cameras on them? Be a bit paranoid. Turn off microphones and cameras, avoid downloading third-party apps, and learn which sort of software is approved for the devices you’re using.
Exercising Responsible Technology Best Practices
If you really want to be advanced, switch operating systems and use non-mainstream solutions for communications, searches, and other internet utility. But that’s a step many don’t have the capacity to take, or the time to pursue. In the meantime, before you’re at that level, simply exercise consciousness in your device usage.
Don’t sign on to WiFi networks you don’t trust, or aren’t familiar with. Don’t download third-party apps. Don’t give away any personal information you don’t have to. Avoid making transactions with your credit or debit card on the web as much as it’s possible for you to do so. You might even set up a financial account for internet transactions only.
If you exercise tactics like these, you can avoid being undermined by many cyber-criminal exploits which would otherwise squarely impact you. Essentially, don’t be part of the larger “group”, as, statistically, this is where hackers are going to devote the primacy of their illegal data-thieving energies.