Weekend Experience -Week 151: The rise of cybercrime and the increasing need for cyber security

In our world today, the rise of cybercrime is at an alarming rate, the internet is no longer safe to use, and hackers get access to your data with no stress. This has led lots of people into unwanted debt, leaving them stranded as they don't know where or who to go to for help. The evil perpetrators have no fear whatsoever because people have no or little knowledge on how to keep their data safe while using the internet in their day-to-day lives.

I remembered two years ago when my Facebook account was hacked, unknown to me, that they had hacked my dad's account too. The fraudster messaged me and told me he was a friend of my dad with convincing stories to believe. I logged in to my Facebook account to ask my dad if he knew the person in question. He replied yes, which made me believe him, not knowing the account had been hacked and that it was the fraudster talking to me. He requested that the code be sent to my phone, and I told him, and in that instance, Facebook stopped working. I lost access to my account, and then it dawned on me that my account had been hacked. I couldn't protect my account at that time, and I made it so easy for the hackers to get access to it.

There is a need for an increase in cyber security as a matter of urgency because the lack of adequate security has made defrauding easy, and this is causing people to bite off more than they can chew. Young boys don't want to work to earn a living in a legit way anymore; they believe the legit way is too slow for them, so they switched to hacking people's bank accounts and taking advantage of the powerless policy concerning cyber security.

In December 2021, my mother wanted to withdrew an amount of #20,000 with a GTB ATM from a Sterling Bank ATM stand, and immediately she inserted the card and did the needful, but it declined, and she withdrew the card from the ATM machine. Some minutes later, my father began to receive alerts of multiple withdrawals of #20,000, making #120,000. He called my mom to ask how much she withdrew, and she confirmed she was unable to withdraw. It was then we realized some fraudster had hacked into his account. We contacted the bank to complain, and after all the processes,,the bank couldn't do anything about it, and they refunded us #60,000 out of #120,000. Because there was no adequate cyber security, we couldn't trace who committed the evil act.

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With adequate cyber security, data will be monitored and kept safe, with no outsider having access to people's information or tampering with people's funds in any way. If proper security is put in place, fraudsters will be detected easily and brought to book, and this way, people will have peace of mind about their assets.

Thanks for your time on my blog.