Here is a story of a man who decided to trust his guts and challenge the most powerful ones. Meet braveheart Kevin Roose who challenged top hackers to hack his cyber presence and instantly, realises his mistake. As part of Fusion’s documentary series, Kevin, decided to see whether his cyber defences were capable enough to safeguard him from the attacks of hackers. This decision turned out to be a big revelation and shocker for Kevin.
After witnessing celebrities, corporate, big institutions, and significant organisations getting hacked, Kevin decides to check on his own, how bad cyber attack can be for an individual. After all, these days for the sake of convenience we all do not mind keeping our confidential documents and details on cyberspace. With anti-virus software, a few passwords, and questions and answers; we love to believe that we are safe from any cyber attack.
To test his cyber vulnerability, Kevin walks into DefCon, Las Vegas, a hackers’ convention where the best of the world come together and discusses the latest breakthrough in the world of hacking and cyber security. Now, walking into a place like this is similar to walking into a minefield you might be blown away even before you can realise it. They ask you to not use the Wi-Fi, switch off the Bluetooth and also not to use the ATMs as they can be hacked too.
Kevin spends two weeks in this convention and asks some of the best hackers of the world to ruin his life. And, they happily oblige.
Firstly, by using social engineering, a phone line, and internet connection; a hacker within minutes she gets access to Kevin’s phone network account and blocks him out. Then, Kevin goes to another hacker who uses the traditional spear-phishing method, which is basically an e-mail with a link and once you click on the link the hackers gets access to your personal computer. In fact, this is one of the most common cyber attack tool. Even in this one, Kevin gets hacked and the kind of access the hacker gains over him is scary.
When Kevin asks what the hacker could have done the answer was this
I could have left you homeless and penniless.
Check the complete video here.
Video Courtesy: Fusion
Simply speaking, beware!!