This Week in Getting Hacked: Curiosity Infected the System with Malware Edition

All aboard the cybersecurity train! CHOOO CHOOOO! Each week we bring you the greatest and most terrifying cybersecurity and hacking-related news on the web. This is….THIS WEEK IN GETTING HACKED!

On to the links…

Cloud-based data storage provider Dropbox was hacked in 2012 and it affected nearly 68 million users. Dropbox informed their users about the breach, and warned them to change their passwords, as hackers were able to gather emails/usernames and hashed passwords.

Photo Credit: bbc.com (linked above)

Now, Dropbox is automatically resetting the passwords of users who had not made the change since the announcement in 2012, but let’s be honest—if you didn’t change it then, you probably weren’t going to change it at all.

The biggest vulnerability in any company is the people. You can have the best firewall, the best cybersecurity protocols, the best network admins to oversee everything, the best anti-virus software, and comprehensive cybersecurity training and it still won’t matter. The proof is in the pudding: half of people still click on anything sent to them.

Half.

If you share a cubicle or workspace with one other person, one of you will click on anything that comes through their email, regardless of what it contains or where it comes from. Why are people clicking on links? Because they are “curious”. That’s their reason. Curiosity killed the cat…and infected the system with malware. Organizations might want to train users to check if a site is known to be malicious before visiting, with a blacklist checker tool.

A group of hackers is selling hacking tools that took advantage of zero-day vulnerabilities from an iOS update, so just make sure that you’re constantly updating your stuff as it comes.

Photo Credit: wired.com (linked above)

Also, Apple products aren’t the beacon of cybersecurity that people have made them out to be in the past.

The Director of the FBI believes that there is “no such thing as absolute privacy in America.” Isn’t that refreshing?

And finally…

We’ve spoke on it before, but the FBI has stated that foreign hackers have penetrated state election systems with the intent of potentially targeting voters and influencing the electoral process.

Illinois and Arizona voter databases are believed to be the states in question, with hackers attempting to get that sweet, sweet all-encompassing voter databases.