After recently watching Citizenfour, I feel myself being much more cautious about what I search on the web. I do not do this because I have anything to hide, but because people do not act the same when they believe, or in this case know, they are being surveilled. These podcast episodes did not exactly put my mind at ease either. With problems such as ransomware and botnet, it seems a lack of knowledge could cost the average citizen a lot more than a few lost files. Therefor, the question remains, how do we protect ourselves from these cyber attacks?

College students around the world use their devices for primarily social media. Some of that content is private in the sense that you only want a select amount of people to be able to view it. So, how do we protect our accounts? The best way also is the most simple: long and complicated passwords. The more random and lengthy the password is, the harder for an attacker to gain access. Another caution to hold in your mind brings me back to the video we watched about the reporter who visited “hacker-con” in Russia. To show the ease and speed with which an attacker can infiltrate a device, the interviewees set up a fake wifi account under the hotels name. The reporter logged on to the wifi and the attackers were then able to snake-hole their way through the rest of her passwords and locks with ease. If I could offer two pieces of substantial advice for fellow college students I would offer: use strong passwords and always be vigilant of what you connect with your device.