A 17-Year-Old Behind the Target Attacks? @HotspotShield #HotspotShield

Disclosure:  I am a Hotspot Shield Ambassador that is compensated and will be sharing my honest opinion.

So by now I am sure everyone has heard all about the Target credit card number hacks, and it seems like the number keeps on growing.  From what I understand it was from point-of-sale purchases during a certain period of time, which I fortunately didn’t shop at an actual Target store during that time.  I had shopped at Target online but that was safe, I think.  So anyways now I am reading that the attempt actually had a 17-year-old behind it.  He created and sold the malware that caused all the problems.  Crazy to think that a 17-year-old could create something like that!  Kids though are getting smarter and more technologically advanced at younger ages, which has it pluses and minuses.  Sure its great because there are more people out there using and creating technology, but then again there are also more people out there who can abuse it.

I remember back when I was in high school and in a hacking group online, which was basically use sharing files online over dial-up – yeah not so crazy or illegal.  I think so many people out there are naive to how technology can be used against us and of course we assume that companies are protecting us on their end.  It should be a given that my credit card swiped at Target will be processed safely and securely, which normally it is, but mistakes happen.

Hackers pop up anywhere and many times you may not even know you were hacked.  This whole Target thing was made public obviously because of how many people were affected, but at a lesser known store or smaller amount of people it may not have been made public.

One way to keep your information safe while shopping online is to use a VPN (virtual private network) such as HotSpot Shield.  It is a great way to keep your browsing and shopping to yourself and secure.  It also protects against malware, which  includes a variety of hostile computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, spyware, dishonest adware, and other malicious programs.