Hackers

When I think of the term hacker, I think of somebody “hacking” or entering without permission onto somebody’s computer programs or social networking cites. Too bad a “hacker” is not that simple and is a lot more important and has the potential to effect every one of us. Computer hacking is the practice of modifying computer hardware and software to accomplish a goal outside of the creator’s original purpose. A lot of times hackers are teens who are curious about what they can do and find out on a computer, but there are definitely more serious hackers and forms of hacking.

The two main goals of a hacker are to steal or destroy. Computer Hackers can access personal information, such as, a persons social security number, credit card numbers, banking account information, and really anything about you.  Hackers also hack into company computers and are able to find out not only costumers information from that company but also their financial information and accounts, as well as change the information without the companies knowledge.

Most people probably don’t worry about computer hackers and having their personal information accessible, most would probably brush it off, thinking it would never happen to them. Which is true about myself as well, there’s too many other priorities and things to worry about. Although hacking is a serious and important problem and could just become more and more a problem. Earlier this year, in January, the Canadian government was hacked. These hackers got access to passwords on these high-level, very important computers and stole information that was secret and sensitive to the Canadian government. After research, all the hacking on Canada was traced back to computer servers in China. According to CBC news, these hackers are considered to be called, “patriotic hackers” who go around the world and target institutions or governments that seem as a target to their government, in this case the Chinese government.  It seems that Canada has resources that China greatly “needs” or wants, which isn’t proved yet, but could definitely be found through computer hacking, figuring out passwords, and accessing information that is important to the country and all the citizens.

Think about how scary it is to know, that the everyday things that you don’t worry about, for example, your personal information, the safety of your country, and the safety of your companies really are not that safe, and someone has the potential the get ahold of all that information. These hackers are skilled in computer and find great joy in figuring out how to obtain information in new ways. Once they accomplish one thing, its like a puzzle, they want to see what else they can do, which results in more hacking, or in Canada’s case more serious hacking issues.