Cyber terrorism has recently been in the news for various reasons and many of these reasons are alarming. Internet is now in a stable state for the last few years. When interest was first starting to grow back in the days of Windows 95 from Microsoft, nobody even thought that we would have to worry about something like cyber terrorism.
Unfortunately, that had been the case and the whole world is now suffering from different types of cyber terrorism including real terrorist activities, hacking attempts, ransom ware and what not.
In this article, we are going to talk about how to tackle cyber terrorism. We will discuss the security measures that you can take to make sure that you do not end up being a victim.
Try to Think
The first thing that we have to do on a regular basis is to think. Whether you are a kid or a forty-year-old parent, you can get into the world of cyber terrorism. Terrorists do most of their recruitment online for many reasons. First, it is safer and they do not run the risk of getting caught by police which is one reason to go for it. Also, people are more open to talk on internet which is tough in a live conversation. Apart from these two reasons, it is easier to set someone up on internet using different videos and images to manipulate their thoughts which obviously is not going to work in a real world system.
These are the reasons that why terrorists look to recruiting online. Therefore, the first thing that you should do is to think properly. You will still be making friends online but make sure that you also know them in real life. Do not just make friends with someone only because you think what they are saying is true. Always do your fact check whenever you are asked about something or given an information. That will keep you safe.
Be Sure of Where You Are Clicking
We saw one of the biggest ransom ware attacks in the history of internet in last month all around the globe. The hackers hacked systems of different companies, hospitals and personal computers. They wanted to be paid via bitcoin to make sure that they do not harm your computer. Many fall for it and paid them their desired money. After a few days of the attack, the white hat people figured out a system to get out of the hacking attempt and thus, they couldn’t make a lot of money.
However, this definitely tells us that the world is closing down and all of us are vulnerable to attacks like these. How to make sure that you are safe? Well, there are a couple of things that you can do depending on the importance of your data.
The first thing that you should do is to make sure that your data is protected every single day. To make sure that it happens, always take a backup of your complete PC once in a while. With the world being a cloud storage system, it is not tough anymore to shift all your data to a cloud storage whether it is Dropbox or Google Drive.
If you think that you have important data on your system, it is always advised to make sure that you also have a backup which is not associated with the same system. This same rule applies when you are managing websites. Do not depend on hosting platforms to create backup of your website. It is your website and you are the one who should create regular backups to make sure that you do not suffer from a hack attack.
The next thing that you must do to stay safe is understand where to click and where not to click. Always look at the domain of a website where you are redirected before you take any action on that website. Do not download something from a source that is untrustworthy. Google and their browser Google chrome has introduced a new feature called the safe and no safe icon. If you look at the url portion of your browser, you will see that there is an option in the initial part of the URL that says whether the site is safe for you to send very important information or not. It is commonly known as the SSL certificate. As it is a new thing, there are still a lot of websites which are trustworthy but don’t have their SSL Certificates yet. However, within the next couple of years, it will be a clear indication of who you can trust and who you cannot.
Types of Cyber Terrorism Attacks
In this section of the article, we will talk about some of the most common types of cyber terrorism attacks. These will help you to make sure that you are not taking the wrong decision.
The first one is commonly known as the simple unstructured attack. In this case, terrorists use simple systems and tools created by mass people. They often use methods like phishing to get into someone’s system. Also, song and video download websites often come with the malwares.
The next type is commonly known as the advanced structured attack. In this case, hackers do their research before they attack you. This attack comes from the network level in almost all the case where the hackers take control of either the network or the IP and therefore, of everything that is within the network.
There is also another type known as the complex-coordinator. This is the biggest type and individuals are less likely to get affected by terrorism of this type. In this case, hackers build their team to go for mass attacks towards a certain country or an organization.
At the end, always make sure that you know what you are doing on internet. Do not let anyone take a chance out of your ignorance. If you are confused about something, do a Google search to be extra careful.
