One moment you are happy that you are able to control your finances and your credit card debts by having discipline and control on all your transactions. The next moment, you are bombarded with a long list on your credit card bill-transactions you may not even have dreamed of making in the first place. What happened? What will you do? As you flood yourself with all the possible and endless possibilities, you will begin to realize that you have been hacked! While the rise in technology has given us a lot of convenience, it has also posed a greater potential threat if we are not careful on how to propagate its use.
How did they get your vital information?
1. Skimmers
What are skimmers? Skimmers are devices used to scan and store your personal data from your credit or debit cards. There are many forms of skimmers and various ways to transfer data from a skimmer to a hacker’s device.
One of the most popular type of skimmers are those inserted in ATM card slots. Often, you may think that you are just doing normal bank transactions only to find out the next few days that your whole account has been hacked and emptied. Another form of skimmers are those used by waiters, bar tenders and other people you may be giving your credit card to but are unable to follow or see where they are going with your card. They would simply swipe your card on their skimmer device and all your data gets stored there. Some hackers go to the extent of distracting clerks in stores and swapping the device used to swipe your card and replacing it with one of their owns. As the clerks continue to swipe in peoples cards, the device continues to store information until such time the hackers will return for the device. Skimmers are often used with devices which have the use of credit or debit cards but are unmanned. This is easier for them to manipulate and get all they need.
2. Phishing and Malwares
This is a very popular modus operandi. Somebody sends you an email-it may even come from an address you know and sends you an attachment that seems to pose no harm in it. When you open it, malware immediately gets into your device and gathers all your information. This is why you need to keep your financial information from emails that you open in public computers. Make sure that you only open important information on devices that you trust.
We can never avoid the advancement in the way people obtain and steal our information and assets as the development grows side by side with the development with technology. Hackers will do all that they can to try to squeeze out anything and everything from you. Take caution all of the time.