Hack Yourself. If You Don’t, The Hackers Will.

I have seen my share of hacking movies (i.e. The Net and Hackers), but I’ve always wondered what tricks those average hackers have up their sleeves. You know, the ones that steal individual’s information off normal laptops rather than classified documents over a government network. In the June issue of LAPTOP Magazine I found out.

Check out the full Hack Yourself To Save Yourself article, where I attempted three different hacks on myself to learn more about the tools hackers have at their disposal and the ways of protecting one’s identity and system. Then watch the videos below to see a hands-on with the programs I used.

Using a program called Wireshark I was able to monitor my own wireless network activity and see some of the information being sent over it. Watch the video to see how it is done and then check out our suggestions, such as using a router with WPA2 encryption, to protect yourself.

The most interesting hack for me was cracking my passwords. Using a program called Cain & Abel I was able to see how easily someone could gain access to the passwords stored on the system. The video is pretty telling of what types of passwords might be on your computer. Lesson learned: do not store your passwords on your computer.