off the grid - The Sociable

Could your home be the next eco-friendly power plant?: Screems

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We all need electricity to power our homes and all the appliances, and that’s what the grid stood for, since...

Brains Byte Back

The weekly podcast looking at how our brains, psychology, and society are impacted by the ever-evolving technology that surrounds us. Every Tuesday we bring you the best stories and guests from around the world relating to technology, psychology, and society.

Every day hackers send out emails cleverly disguised, posing as legitimate institutions or individuals to lure recipients into providing sensitive data such as personally identifiable information, banking, and credit card details, and passwords.

You might be thinking you are too smart to fall for this, but the truth is, these attacks are often so sophisticated they can cause even the most tech-savvy individuals to fall for them, hook, line, and sinker.

In this episode, we explore how to identify phishing attacks, how they evolve with current affairs and trends, and what to do if you become the victim of an attack.

To do this we are joined by Dan Merino, CEO of Green Dot Security, a cybersecurity company offering services to small and mid-sized businesses.

Today, you will learn how hackers use themes based on larger events such as COVID-19 or tax season to add a legitimate edge to their phishing attacks, why 2-factor authentication is so important to protect yourself, and why the information you post online could be a goldmine for phishing attacks.

We discuss how humans are often the weakest point for a cyberattack, but can also stand to be the strongest defense when trained well.

We also explore how call centers become the target of hacks, in order to access the information of their clientele, so the attackers can pose as a member of the call center to conduct phishing attacks over the phone using this information.