The damage 4 simple digits can do

While reading the article “How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking”, my jaw was dropped to the ground the whole time. I had no idea how easy it is to for a hacker to ruin someones personal devices so easily. The most interesting line to me was, “The very four digits that Amazon considers unimportant enough to display in the clear on the Web are precisely the same ones that Apple considers secure enough to perform identity verification.‪” It’s essential that people like Mat Honan that have been hacked share their story with the public in order for us as a whole to become more aware and understanding of security policies and customer service.

It amazes me that people have this much time on their hands to hack into an innocent man’s digital life for no reason other than to get access to his Twitter account because he liked his username when I barely have time to get homework done! Identity theft is one of those things that I feel like will never happen to me but after reading this article, I’ve realized how vulnerable I am to hackers. Most of my accounts link to the same thing and I often use similar passwords and 4 digit numbers. Simply because I “haven’t felt like doing it” I have yet to sync my phone to my MacBook through iCloud and pictures from up to 4 years ago are stored only on my computer. Although Honan lost photos of the first year of his daughter’s life, he is considered to be one of the lucky ones that got hacked! His hackers could have done damage financially leading him into an even greater problem, however, the 19 year old hacker was compromising enough to explain to Honan exactly how he performed this and that his hope was to basically make a point to the customer service of companies in order for them to upgrade their security to overcome all hackers in the future.

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