Have you heard of man-in-the-middle cyber attacks? It goes by many names, including monkey-in-the-middle’ and ‘monster-in-the-middle.’
In the cyber attack, a malicious entity gets between you and what you’re trying to do online. The entity can intercept and send and receive data you meant for someone else.
Ordinarily your computer will communicate with a server when you complete a transaction online. Your computer is communicating with a system somewhere else. When an attack happens, the man-in-the-middle is a go-between who intercepts whatever you’re trying to do. Generally, we don’t realize that an attack has happened until it’s too late.
How can you prevent a man in the middle attack from happening?
Use wifi with strong credentials and protections. If you’re using public wifi with no passwords required, your router at home doesn’t have strong encryption, or your default router login is “username” and “password” you could be a victim of an attack. Avoid this by not connecting to public wifi and securing your router. Need help securing your router? Email router info to katie.lexchron@gmail.com. I’ll find instructions and share it in a future column!
Use a Virtual Private Network when you’re connected to the internet to help when it comes to keeping your system and network safe. Be sure that your VPN is kept up to date, just like any other security software. If you need help finding how to update your VPN, email me.
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