How do people really get hacked?

That is scary.
I don't belong to Fakebook.
I found this article.

6 things you need to do to stop yourself getting hacked in 2021

 

Of course not.
I have only just started using online banking.

 

Nor me to be honest.
I will be interested to see other responses.
I had my old Email hacked once.
I no longer use Yahoo.

 

Me too.

 

If you can find your password in a dictionary, scrabble guide or thesaurus, it isn't secure. Random-generated numbers, letters, and symbols make the best and most secure passwords. Changing a password on an IRREGULAR basis makes them even better. NEVER leaving a copy of your passwords anywhere near any computer or terminal is absolutely imperative. However, not answering stupid questions on facebook should be obvious. I'm on FB, but I absolutely refuse to enable any of their apps, as every last one of them requires me to give up my password and info to perfect strangers. I won't even trust my own dad or other family members with that kind of information.

 

I should point otu that I've never been hacked on facebook, nor have I had any problems with any of my computers since leaving the world of windoze behind for linux. I don't have any antivirus software running on my system, but I've been known to scan my system once in a while with CLAM Antivirus software. I probably wipe my system and re-install the newest version of whatever OS I'm running more often than that.

 

I don't have my personal info out in the open. You won't find my birthday let alone my full name.

Fakebook has zero personal information of me let alone where I live.

My computers at home are behind a hardware firewall along with software. You won't find anything personal on those including the laptop. My personal files and info are on a encrypted drive that requires password each time. Old drives get scrubbed 20 times over before retiring them. I don't toss them in the garbage.

Passwords get changed every 90 days.

Good luck opening up accounts under my name. Those are on lock down also.

I use verification. Even on my email I use verification.

When I use Google to search. I'm not even signed on to my account.

I use ad blocker on all of my web browsers including on the phone.

 

This is a good informative thread.
How to Stop Hackers Stealing Your Information - Identity Theft

 

We had our Debit card compromised while vacationing in Mexico a few years back, I got notified while still in Mexico, it was a little scary as the bank wanted to shut the card down.

 

1. Ditch Facebook.
2. Ditch anything Microsoft or Google.
3. Ditch online banking. I still pay my physical paper bills in-person at the local branch office of my bank. My account literally cannot be reached via the public Internet.

Also, my phone is an old Nokia from almost 20 years ago, and my OS is a Linux live distro that boots completely to RAM from a USB stick, and gets flushed on every reboot. So every day.

 

All my previous banks are shut.
Google is my friend.
Fakebook never.
Hubby pays the bills.

 

The banks' recent push to try and make everybody switch to online banking bothers me, because security-wise, it opens a whole new can of worms. All it takes is the discovery of one major vulnerability, and it all becomes compromised.

 

Even before the internet age (for those keeping track, it came into common usage in 1996), identity thieves managed to report a credit card of mine lost and have a replacement sent to a far-away address. They were able to activate it, and they used it to obtain several thousand USDs of cash and jewelry, by having an identity document with my name and someone else's face and address to go along with the credit card. They did this in-batch - a carload of organized criminals probably had 50 credit cards and 50 state-issued driver's licenses with different people's names on them. And there were probably 50 carloads of people all working for the same organization. They were able to exceed the credit limit on my account by simultaneously charging expensive things and getting cash advances while making payments with stolen checks. It was a whole lot of work and required a lot of coordination, but they made a lot of money doing it. What does this have to do with getting hacked today?

No matter how careful you are, you can't rely on merchants, banks, their service providers, or their service providers' service providers. The credit card of mine that got hacked 30 years ago is one that I had never used anywhere, and that had never been out of my possession. It arrived in the mail, and ostensibly only the issuing bank and I even knew that the account existed. How did this occur? Most likely beginning with someone inside the company where I worked who had access to my employment records, which wouldn't have included that anything about that credit card account, but which would have included information needed for someone else to run a credit report on me and find out what card accounts I had. That's my best theory; however, it could have started in about 50 other ways as well, even then.

I consider myself to be extremely careful in this internet age, but I've still had online account information of mine stolen at least 8 times that I know of and one e-mail account hijacked. It's the age-old tradeoff between security and convenience. The more convenient you want your life to be, the more security you'll have to forego. The more security you want, the less convenience you'll have. We all have to find that balance that we're comfortable with and willing to accept.