If you are hooked up to the Internet (at home, at a local coffee shop, at an airport, wherever), there is a constant barrage of Internet traffic trying to get to your PC. Hackers are trying to get into your computer. They might be in China, in Russia, in the US, in your own neighborhood, or even part of the US government (i.e. the NSA). The NSA has had such bad press lately (mostly due to the public disclosures made by Edward Snowden) that, yes, you should assume they’re trying to access your computer.
So, how many of these attacks are occurring every day? Way too many (see below). Why are hackers so determined? Because there are endless ways to monetize a hacked computer. Are they attacking YOU? Not usually. Hackers are scanning every Internet connection out there (not just yours). If you are connected to the Internet, and there is not a firewall (a network filter that prevents traffic that you don’t want) between you and the Internet, hackers are probing for weaknesses in your computer security.
Here is one way to visualize the problem: Akamai Technologies, Inc, a large Internet content delivery network, has a VERY COOL real-time Internet monitoring webpage. After you click on the link, you can choose Modes of: Attacks, Latency, and Traffic. “X” the box for Attacks, and you will see this:
Not good, especially if you live in the Western US.
Here is another way to visualize the problem: My household has an Internet connection from Comcast (our local ISP). To determine how often I’m getting attacked, I can look at my firewall logs:
This is an Excel chart of the inbound packets that my firewall thought was an attack on 17 Sep. 2013. The frequency of the “attacks” varied tremendously, depending on the time of day. During the 2PM hour that day, I had 31 attacks (about 1 every 2 minutes). At the 10AM hour, there was only 1 attack for the entire hour. So, the “Hacking Attack Rate” varies significantly. Most people probably aren’t aware of this; it is happening more often than most people think. And it’s increasing every day.
The threat from network spying is great enough that the Kremlin is considering disconnecting their top-secret computers entirely. From the Huffington Post: “Pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia said the state service was looking to purchase 20 typerwriters because using computers to prepare top-secret documents may no longer be safe.” Hmmmm… They could just unplug their computers. But, the Kremlin folks are pretty smart. What do they know that I don’t know? Should I be buying a typewriter?
For my recommendations about how to protect yourself from ever-increasing hacking attacks, read:
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