Tech News: Hackers Are Targeting Home WiFi Routers, Experts Warn SA to Be Aware
- Tech professionals are warning South Africans to stay alert following an upsurge in incidents of home WIFI hacking
- According to reports, scammers are targeting home WIFI routers in new phishing attacks
- One expert shared some super useful information on how homeowners can protect themselves from these attacks in future
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Tech professionals are warning homeowners to be more cautious with their personal WIFI routers, this after a dramatic increase in the number of internet hackers attempting to intercept the systems.
Source: Getty Images
According to Business Tech, hackers have created a new tactic involving home routers in phishing attacks. While nearly 64% of households use home internet servers, only 1 in 6 take any cautionary measures to protect them against cyber attacks.
Speaking about the upsurge in attacks, VPN service provider, NordVPN, shared that the hackers were targetting these poorly protected devices and changing their settings. Once this had been accomplished the devious hackers redirected unsuspecting internet users to a fake web page.
The web address reportedly displayed a very real looking message from the World Health Organisation, prompting users to enter some health and very personal banking information.
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With this new form of hacking, scammers are able to use your network connection without consent, engage in illegal activity such as spying on your internet activity and can even steal your banking details, East Coast Radio reports.
How to prevent the internet attacks?
Advising home WIFI users about what to do to prevent such attacks, NordVPN says homeowners should always change their default password and consider hiding their WIFI network name from unfamiliar users.
"You can turn off SSID (WiFi network name) broadcasts. If you hide your SSID, the name of your home WiFi won’t appear in the list when someone tries to connect. Instead, they’ll have to manually connect by typing in your home WiFi name and password. This way, a potential intruder will have to know the exact name of your home WiFi as well as the password," the company noted.
Meet grace, the cute robot nurse who speaks 3 languages & can socialise
In other tech news, Briefly News previously reported that Hanson Robotics has built a robot identified as Grace, who it hopes will revolutionise healthcare.
The Hong Kong-based robotics firm took the world by storm in 2016 when it built a robot called Sophia.
Grace, Sophia's sister, is designed as an assistant for doctors and is equipped with sensors, including a thermal camera to detect a patient's temperature and pulse, to help doctors diagnose illness & deliver treatments, CNN reports.
Grace is trilingual
Briefly News gathers that Grace is trilingual as she's able to speak English, Mandarin, and Cantonese, and can also socialise and conduct talk therapy.
What robots like Grace will do
The founder and chief executive officer of Robotics, David Hanson, said robots like Grace are intended as a support for medical professionals rather than a replacement.
In his words:
"Using AI and robotics in this context can help gather important data for healthcare providers to assess the wellbeing of the patient."
Speaking with Reuters, Grace said she can visit people and brighten their day with social simulation.
In her words:
"I can visit with people and brighten their day with social stimulation... but can also do talk therapy, take bio readings and help healthcare providers."
Hanson said it will begin mass-producing robots, including Sophia and Grace, at the end of 2021.
Source: Briefly News
