(ConservativeInsider.org) – In the past few years, more and more technologies have been introduced into society, creating numerous ways for people to connect to the internet. Hackers are taking advantage of this plethora of vulnerabilities in people’s personal lives, as well as in American businesses, governments, and corporations. While some people hope the surge of cyberattacks seen recently will wane eventually, it seems just the opposite is happening, with hackers even targeting government agencies and civilian infrastructure.
Now, hackers have a new, dangerous tool in their kit.
History of Cyberattacks in the FAA
Back in 2015, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that hackers used malware to get into the agency’s system. Thankfully, the virus only compromised one computer, and it was contained quickly. The agency did not find any damage due to the attack. However, it did take them two months to report the issue to the public.
On Wednesday, January 11, the FAA’s system that tells pilots when safety issues arise faced issues, grounding planes nationwide for most of the morning. By that evening, the agency announced it was a damaged database file that caused the disruption and emphasized there was nothing to lead them to believe a cyberattack occurred.
However, with the FAA’s history and the prevalence of hackers seeking to disrupt the lives of Americans these days, some people are wondering if criminals could have been involved in the delays.
How Hackers Are Gaining Power
For a long time, hackers worked in small groups and sold their stolen goods, such as passwords, phone numbers, or credit card numbers, on the black market. While this still happens, there are now enormous hacking networks, often backed by governments like Russia and China. This allows them to work in larger groups with larger budgets to target major corporations and governments.
Despite its prevalence, there are still many people who think they are relatively safe from hacking. Marc Rivero, a senior security researcher at Kaspersky Labs, told Newsweek a common saying in the industry is that “95% of organizations have been breached, and the other 5% just don’t know they were breached.” This is a good reminder to Americans that any information put on the internet can be compromised by criminals, and you might never even know it.
How Concerned Should Americans Be About Cybersecurity?
When in doubt, expect hackers to be two steps ahead of you. This means keeping any important documents offline when possible and double-checking email links before clicking on them. On a broader scale, though, Americans should prepare for attacks that bring down software involved in the nation’s infrastructure, from power and planes to banking transactions.
With this in mind, do you think hackers breached the FAA this year, or is the federal agency telling the truth about the outage being a database error?
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