Hacking forums go back to the very early days when hacking was all fun and games about defacing your friends website or proving to them that you had better attacking skills than they did the ability to harden their website. 

Now hacking is big business!

Hacking forums still exist and attackers use them to share knowledge and skills openly with the objective of helping each other to attack innocent businesses and individuals, to make money by illegal means.  

Defending yourself on the internet has never been so difficult!

All the current trends suggest it's only going to get more difficult, as attackers increase in number and upskill at the same time. 

It’s never been easier to become a successful attacker on the internet than it is now. There is abundant training and attack methods are shared openly. Just check YouTube for endless examples. 

Defending has always been harder than attacking. As a defender you have to be right all the time. As an attacker you only have to be right once. 

It’s well recognised you should never write your own encryption. Even if you’re the greatest mathematician the world has ever known. It’s impossible for one person to see all the angles.

This is why encryption methods that get used in all spaces of life, use methods that are made public and peer reviewed over years. 

PGP is still one of the most secure methods of transferring sensitive data, and it's been about since 1991. It will be considered to be secure, until someone manages to break it, which eventually they will. This is inevitable. 

For the same reasons that encryption methods require peer review. Defence methods are most effective when they're made public and peer reviewed. 

No one person can see all the angles and what might seem unbreakable from one perspective may be vulnerable from another. Peer review is the best method of validating your methods to be sure they’re effective in all the contexts you require.

Defence is most effective when it’s collaborative.  

For this very reason we have joined https://www.info-sec.live/. This is a safe space where CIO’s and anyone with responsibility for the security of their organisation can meet to discuss their security methods and to get feedback from us and other experts on how those methods might be improved or adjusted. 

If you’re serious about securing your organisation this is a good place to find the advice and support you need. 

We hold live messenger meetings weekly featuring guest experts so you can safely question your own assumptions and actively improve your security posture.    

I help business owners secure their websites and networks through Vulnerability Scanning and manual Pentesting. A secure business is one that can weather the challenges of 2021. Are you secure? If you don’t know then I can help you. Book a free consultation and UP your security NOW 

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