Maurya - How not to get hacked: Are you safe online?

I would like to thank my parents for making me who I amtoday, my friends who have always supported me. Manythanks to my college who provided me with the platformto learn and grow myself as an individual. Finally I wouldlike to thank my readers to take out the time and read thisbook. I hope you get useful information out of it.

We live in a world where almost every aspect of our life iscontrolled in some way or the other by technology.Whether we like it or not, we are so much dependent ontechnology that we cannot imagine to live without it.Though it has definitely made our lives easier, suchdependency has some serious repercussions. Security hasbecome so much prominent that companies spend insaneamount of money to protect its data from hackers. Onemight think that on a personal level, it is not thatimportant to care about these things, however nothingcan be fu-rther from the truth. Ignorance is bliss isprobably just the opposite of what I am trying to conveyhere. Because this world of internet is huge and you willfind every type of person here- one who likes you, onewho hates you, one who want to steal every single pennyof yours. Ill give you numerous examples where peoplegot scammed of their hard-earned money so I cannotstress enough on how important this awareness is. It isimportant that we take care of ourselves.

This book will show you exactly how hackers try to attackpeople (not physically) and how you can defend yourselfagainst them. Most articles or well-wishers suggest you tofollow some things without actually explaining why it isthat way and most of the time it becomes over defensive.Just keeping a complex password using unthinkablecharacters and numbers wont save you from hackers. Itis definitely possible to survive without an antivirus if youknow what you are doing. But you have to be aware ofwhy you are doing things a certain way and why that isnecessary. Only then you can consider yourself shieldedenough against the bad elements of this world.

Before starting, it is important that you know about meand where all this holy knowledge comes from, not onlybecause you can catch and blame me if your account getshacked in future, but also because I want to establish a trust between us.

I have done my B.E. from Delhi College of Engineering(now DTU) in the year 2012 (if that matters). I am not a security or networking expert by profession, but I thinkof myself to be more than qualified to educate anyoneregarding online security. By profession I am a softwareengineer and an ethical hacker by hobby. Please dontcurse me for that; fortunately hacker is a misnomer and a hacker is not the bad guy who wants to steal yourinformation. It is a term which got infamous over time.However I will continue to use the term hacker the wayyou think it is to avoid confusion. Personally, I have beento the dark side of hacking without crossing the lines ofmorality and legality, so I know exactly how hackersoperate and what they do to achieve their goals. Thisinside information is very helpful for staying protected inthis online world of scam and fraud.

My aim from this book is to explain you how to stay safefrom any kind of online scam or hacking attempt and toenable you to guard yourself from every possible kind ofattack. I will try to do this without going into thetechnical details, however there are tips in between for thetech-savvy. Whenever you see the Pro Tip title, and youdo not understand the content, do not worry because it isnot intended for you and it is no way a requirement tounderstand the concept. Overall, I really believe that youwill benefit with this information whether you are just a normal computer user, a student or a technically soundprofessional.

This book is for everyone except those who think theycan never be hacked or scammed. Youd be surprised thathow many people think they are smart enough but theyare the first ones to get into a trap. I have seen the mosttech savvy of people being ignorant about basic securitynorms. Even if you are a hacker yourself, I am sure youwill enjoy reading this book and maybe learn a fewthings. This is my first book so I really hope that I do itthe right way by keeping it interesting as well asinformative.

Please note that I will try to use very simple languagewithout dwelling into technical details so that a commonperson without any internal know-how should be ableunderstand it. If something is extremely obvious for you,please dont feel offended.

One more thing I would like to emphasize here is that Istarted this book with the sole motto of spreadingawareness (along with some part time income along theway if it allows). I would like you to do the same bysharing this knowledge with your friends and family andpreventi.ng them from getting scammed in future. Asmuch as I would like you to recommend this book toothers, I would be more than happy if you lend it to asmany people you can. Because thats what we do protectthose who we love.

So, who the hell are these people, and what do they get bydoing those nasty things? The motive behind every attackis different. First thing is to understand the target of theattack. A hackers target can vary from a large or smallcompany, governments, organizations, high net worthindividuals or a common man. Every attack has a motivebehind it. By attacking an organization, I mean takingcontrol over the websites/server and disrupting theservices which the organization provides. So, when a company gets attacked, you might not be able to access itswebsite and the database where all the customersinformation is stored can also be compromised.

The reason for attacking the organizations may be to senda message or to prove a point. Also, companies getattacked for sensitive data their computers contain whichis generally of some monetary value. Some websites getattacked just because they happen to be in a specificcountry which the hacker doesnt like. The reason to hacka common person like you and me may be either to scamfor money

But if you are reading this book, chances are that youdont have to worry about an organization or governmentgetting hacked. So, why would be a hacker interested inyou? Well, here are a few reasons:
-To scam you out of your money. This is the most

common reason. People who want to make somequick bucks and do not care about morality orlegality will play every kind of trick to fool you. Iwill explain how to identify such threats.

-It might a person you know who might try to hackyour account, maybe to just have fun with you orto take revenge against you. In any case, you haveto be very careful.

-To get your computers resources. It might besurprising for you but a huge number of virusesand Trojans actually have a single motive to hackyou i.e. to use your computers resources toachieve their higher goal. For instance, to carryout an attack against an organization orgovernment, a hacker needs CPU power. His owncomputer can give him a limited amount of CPU power. So he creates a virus which spreads inthousands of computer. When your computer isinfected by such virus, your machine becomes a slave which gets involved in the attack by thehacker against his target organization. Whenthousands of slaves attack the target server, itbecomes a powerful tool for the hacker. Also, thehacker hides behind your system and your IPaddress which makes it difficult for the policeauthorities to track him. The situation can beunderstood better by the following diagram.Zombies are the slave computers and the victim istarget organizations server (although technicallyzombies can also be victim)