"Security is never a priority until you've been hacked"

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/security-is-never-a-priority-until-youve-beenhacked/article36794862/

Getting hacked is a pretty terrifying concept to people, especially in this day and age where everyone is connected to the internet in some way or another. The title of this article I think is pretty accurate in that nobody really thinks about protecting themselves online until something bad happens to them.

It mentions how unsafe internet practices can not only wreak havoc on individuals on their personal computers but also on the large scale with massive companies like Target and Home Depot, both of with dealt with big cyber attacks over the last few years. In my SRA (Security and Risk Analysis) 111 class from sophomore year, my team did a project that researched the cyber attack on JP Morgan Chase in 2014. The hackers used phishing scams on several employees to get access to the bank's internal network. Phishing is a very basic form of a cyber attack since the user just provides the information someone is looking for. This breach led to data associated with 83 million accounts being stolen.

It is fairly easy to avoid phishing scams as long as people are aware of what to look for. Below is a link for anyone that is interested in being more informed about this. I certainly think that if people become even slightly more knowledgeable about protecting themselves as well as their data online, the chances of anything happening will definitely be lower. Because so many people have so many different aspects of their lives are on the internet, they also need to know how to protect them. I actually think that some basic level of computer and cyber security classes should be required in high school and even in college. In the future, people will continue to rely on computers even further so more education about what they use in their day to day lives would be helpful.

How to detect phishing emails: https://blog.returnpath.com/10-tips-on-how-to-identify-a-phishing-or-spoofing-email-v2/