Concerns about Global hacking rings have been rising in recent years due to an increase in high visibility attacks that have rocked industries and governments around the world. With a few keystrokes hackers have managed to paralyze businesses and interfere with government operations in dozens of countries for various purposes, leading many individuals and organizations to take cyber security much more seriously. Many different firms are boosting their efforts to combat the rising tide of hacking and the new security threats that they present, but as of yet no real solution is in sight.
Global hacking collectives are as diverse as they are widespread. They range in formation from shadowy groups attempting to steal personal information and industrial secrets to ideologically driven hactivists attempting to wage a digital war on corporations and governments alike. Sometimes they use stealth to hack into a system; other times they trick users into clicking on infected websites that download trojans and viruses onto their computers. When attacking individual users and personal computers the purpose is often to get access to financial information or create a zombie computer enslaved to the hacker to be used in attacks against larger and more powerful security systems in the future. Corporate or government victims are often targeted to gain access to vital information or massive amounts of data, which can be sold or used in industrial espionage as the hackers see fit.
As a result of these widespread and indiscriminate attacks many people and even more businesses are turning to complex and expensive security measures to protect their information. Passwords have evolved from catch phrases and personal quotes to long and intricate combinations of numbers, letters and special characters. The average virus protection now checks emails, scans websites, and often even blocks access to particular websites before the user can access them and download the infected files. Our security measures are beginning to get more and more restrictive and draconian as people adapt to a digital wild West and learn to deal with the fact that anyone–and often everyone–is the target of random malicious attacks on a regular basis.