Some people believe that the root of all cyber evil is technology itself and that if you don't use fashionable devices, all the scary cyber threats will disappear.

So if you don't have a smart fridge, smart washing machine with WiFi connection (or wireless switches and controls), you should be safe. But that's not true, because everyone has something hackable at home.

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Patsy Walsh, an elderly American woman, agreed to participate in an experiment and allowed two good hackers, Reed Loden (CEO) and Michael Prins (co-founder) of HackerOne, to hack something of hers. Walsh said in advance that there was nothing hackable about her! The researchers also invited journalists from The New York Times to observe the test.

Patsy Walsh can be described as a “progressive grandma”: she has six grandchildren, a laptop, a Facebook profile to keep in touch with family and friends, satellite television and a car. And as you can probably tell from this list, contrary to what it originally stated, it does have some hackable things!

The hackers first laid the foundation.

They visited Patsy Walsh's Facebook page and found that she had recently signed a petition on change.org. It took researchers 10 minutes to send a fake email to Patsy, purporting to come from change.org, asking her to sign another land ownership petition in Marin County, California, where she lives.

The “progressive grandma” couldn’t resist and, as expected, signed the petition.

However, the link in the email took them to a phishing site instead of change.org. This is how the hackers got her password, which she later admitted to using for various services.

So, as it turns out, one fake email was enough to compromise Patsy Walsh's digital life - imagine what would have happened if it wasn't researchers but real hackers. The perpetrators could have used their data for all sorts of fraudulent actions.

After this action, the HackerOne team visited the woman in her house.

An hour and a half was enough to crack a simple digital lock on her garage door using a brute force attack. It took a little longer for the researchers to hack into the lady's DirecTV satellite television - the two hackers couldn't resist and subscribed to some adult channels for Patsy Walsh.

The researchers then got their hands on their laptop. Walsh had written all the passwords on Post-It notes and stuck them next to the router, so this part of the hack didn't take long. After infiltrating the laptop, the hackers gained access to Patsy Walsh's personal information, including her Social Security number, PayPal password, airline mileage account and insurance policy. They then managed to get their hands on a letter of authorization.

The white hat hackers also discovered that they were not the first to enter Patsy Walsh's digital world.

Her laptop was infected with dozens of malicious programs, including malware that installs additional malware, records browser history, displays malicious ads, and more. A poorly protected laptop belonging to someone with little digital experience is simply a great target for attackers.

Patsy Walsh actually benefited from the hacking experiment: On the one hand, she learned a lot about the basic rules of IT security and now knows that she needs a new garage lock and has to use unique, more sophisticated passwords for the various web services. On the other hand, the hackers promised her that they would come back soon and clean her laptop of all malware. The bottom line is that this experiment shows how easy it can be to completely take over someone's digital life, even if the victim can't believe they even have anything hackable in their home.

Basically, we are surrounded by a lot of potentially hackable objects.

We all use PCs and most of us do a lot on our smartphones. Many people also have routers, smart watches, gaming consoles and smart TVs, which can also be targets for cybercriminals.

Many of these things aren't seen as hackable, but tend to have worse protection than PCs - just take Patsy Walsh's garage door as an example. A car with an integrated navigation system that can download traffic data in real time? Hackable . A car without a navigation system, but with a key that can unlock the door without touching it? Much more hackable .

And you don't even have to own a digital device to be hacked, because a lot of digital data about a person is stored in databases of various government organizations and companies - from hospitals to city halls, airlines, banks and retailers to insurance companies and more.

Of course, this data is also potentially hackable - in which case the consequences can be fascinating and dramatic. In some Western countries it is quite easy to enter a person in the database of deceased people without having to hack anything. And then it can be hard for the victim to prove otherwise .

You can't completely avoid these threats - just like you can't be 100% sure that the boat you're sailing won't sink for some reason. But if you check the weather forecast beforehand, know at least the basic sailing rules and wear a life jacket, the risk is minimized and you can have a lot of fun.

The same also applies to IT security.

If you know how data can be compromised, you can protect yourself from it: with reliable security software and strong passwords that you don't write down and stick next to your router.

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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )