What attackers actually want

Understand the real motives behind attacks, and why ordinary people are targets.

The image of hacking most people carry — a genius breaking through a firewall — describes almost nothing that actually happens.

Real attacks are overwhelmingly commercial and automated. Somebody is trying to make money at scale, cheaply. That single fact explains nearly everything about how you get targeted.

What they are usually after:

Money directly. Access to a bank app, an EasyPaisa or JazzCash account, a card number.

Accounts to resell. A working email, social or gaming account has a market price. Your account has value even if you have none.

Your contacts. A message asking for money is far more effective coming from your real WhatsApp than from a stranger. Your account is worth taking simply because your family trusts it.

A foothold at your employer. You are not the target; the academy, the bank or the hospital you work for is. Attackers go through the least-defended person.

Ransom. Encrypt a business's files and charge to unlock them.

Two things follow, and both surprise people.

You do not need to be important to be attacked. Most attacks are untargeted. Software scans millions of accounts and tries known passwords. Nobody chose you.

The weakest point is almost always a person, not the technology. It is far cheaper to convince someone to hand over a code than to defeat encryption. This is why the rest of this course spends more time on human tricks than on technical ones — that is where the attacks actually are.

Try it yourself

List every account you own that has money attached, or could be used to ask your contacts for money. Most people are surprised by the length of the list. That list is what you are protecting.

Check what you learned

Create your free BvLogic ID to take the quiz and record your score.

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