Hacking. What's the deal?!

(Just a warning before you get reading. This post isn't just about video gaming, but it is more generalized, i'll be talking about a variety of things. Just letting you all know! :) )

Hacking. It happens all the time, everywhere, from the XBOX, to the Playstation to the PC. It can't be avoided.
You may be asking, "Why does hacking occur?", "Could I be affected?". Well you're probably not, but i'm going to tell you all anyway.

The seven year old hacker,
Betsy Davies

Sooo, why does hacking happen? Well that could be down to a number of reasons, first being, it's so easy to do! Anyone can do it now-a-days. You can watch tutorials online and learn how to hack within minutes. An example being a seven year old, named Betsy Davies, who hacked a network in under 11 minutes. She was asked by a top security company to watch an online tutorial and hack into the open network set up for her. She watched the tutorial and picked up the rest along the way, which is a bit ridiculous if you ask me! If a seven year old can do it, anyone with the slightest bit of computer know-how can do it, which is                                                              quite scary if you ask me.

A picture Lizard Squad tweeted out over the festive
period during the PSN and XBL outage

Another reason is simply because people get a kick out of it. As society continually grows and grows, we have very quickly started to rely on technology in our everyday lives. As we start to rely on technology, people find ways to mess with us and the technology that we use. A more recent example being the Lizard Squad hacking over the festive period. During the festive period, a hacking group known as Lizard Squad took down Playstation Network (PSN) and Xbox Live (XBL).  How I hear you ask? Well let me tell you! They did a thing called a DDOS. DDOS stands for Distributed Denial of Service. Very simply, it's like refreshing a web page over a million times in a space of a few seconds. This causes the server that handles the webpage to crash, bringing down the site, or in this case, PSN and XBL with it. This meant that no-one could sign in and play their newly opened christmas games, which was a major bummer for gamers, including myself, who couldn't sign on to PSN for a good week.

Next on the list, "Could I be affected?". And quite simply, yes, yes you can. If you use a site or service like PSN or XBL, or anything like that, then a DDOS attack could stop you using that site or service for a few days or even weeks, depending on the severity of the attack.
A more personal attack however, such as an email hack, password hack, etc, would be big. You could lose your access to accounts, emails, and even your personal data. Hacking isn't something you guys can just brush off and sweep aside, it can happen to anyone and it is serious.

This is why, I, Connor from his blog, is giving you guys two, yes TWO FREE tips on keeping safe from the hackers.

1. Firstly, ensure you guys have internet security installed on your computers. People could easily hack into your computer (even a seven year old girl) and take your data from right under your nose. Internet security scans your computer and warns you if your computer has been breached, so if you haven't got it installed, go do it right now!
2. When buying online, both on a console or the computer, delete your details after you're done. This way, if a site or service you use gets hacked and data is stolen, all that could be stolen is your accounts email and password. Your card details will be safe!

I know they're only two tips, but they're free, so don't complain.

Anyway, you ever been hacked? What happened? How did you lose out? Was the situation resolved? Let me know the comments below!
I ask you, my readers, have

Thanks for reading,

Connor :)