Dilip, a business analyst of a reputed MNC lost Rs 15000 due to an internet theft. He was in his room and was checking his bank account details online just before he went to the bed. The next morning, when he again accessed his bank account, he found that 15000 bucks were missing from his account. A perplexed Dilip called his colleague, who also happened to be a senior developer. His friend suspected a cyber crime but also suggested a police investigation.
After a thorough investigation, it was found that a hacker, who was somewhere located nearby Dilip, accessed his account by Bluetooth, when Dilip was checking his account details online. In stead of the fact that Dilip logged out from his account, the hacker roamed around his account and managed to steal Rs 15000.
My story of being victimized by a cyber thief is a bit different. One morning, when I switched on my phone, one of my friends called me and informed me that last night I was chatting with her and abusing her badly. I was terrified with the thought that my account had been hacked. Gradually as the timed passed by, a few friends called me in order to inform me that my account might have been hacked. I was clueless about the motive as well as undecided about what to do. I had to call all of my friends to tell them to ignore any mail coming from my account because my account was hacked.
Dilip and I are not exception. According to a report, last year, one out of thirteen internet users lost their money and personal datum due to cyber crime. Unbelievable but true. There are thousand of recovery tools and software, which can test 200,000 passwords per second. But why will you let the hackers to peep into your account so easily? You can keep the hackers and cyber thieves guessing your account password and user id by following some simple rules.
- Firstly, don’t use personal details like names, address, relative’s name, pet’s name, date of birth, nicknames etc in your login id and password. Make sure that your password has nothing to do with your personal details.
- Use different login ids and passwords for different sites. If you don’t do likely, your accounts may get hacked like a house of cards once the thief gains access to one.
- Use longer password. Shorter passwords are more susceptible to such password recovery tools and software. Choose at least 8-characters password.
- Don’t use words which are found in the English dictionary.
- Mix upper and lower case letters to select a strong password. You can make it stronger by using misspellings, numerals and symbols.
- Avoid using passwords like, ‘abcdefg’, ‘123456′, ‘55555′. Also avoid adjacent letters on your keyboard to form your password.
- Avoid look-alike replacements like @ for a, I for 1, 0 for o etc.
- It is always better to access your accounts in your personal computer rather than a share computer. In cyber some cafés, a certain tool is used which stores your account details secretly without your knowledge.
Remember, a hacker is always more intelligent than a developer, because a hacker starts his work from where a developer finishes of. If a hacker deliberately chases you, you will not be spared at any means. But by using these simple rules, you can at least keep the hackers from ferreting out your personal datum in the first shot.
Sun, Apr 26, 2009, by Ashis
Security