As the world gets more connected every day, new ways to keep your identity safe are developed. Hacking scammers abound and put great effort into finding ways of getting advantage of people through malicious software and other tactics used to steal information.
The idea of getting hacked is really worrisome. We now store more information than ever on our laptops and cellphones, and nobody wants to have personal pictures and important documents from work traveling all around the internet in the hands of malicious people.
An attack performed through a video is very complicated and usually, the targets are not ordinary YouTube watchers. Until a few years ago YouTube videos were not encrypted, meaning that the information sent over the network was visible to other people. A hacker could be able to know who was watching a certain video or, if you were the target, they were able to know what you were watching.
This is not the case today. YouTube videos are now encrypted so the chances of getting hacked or exposing your identity by just watching a video are close to none. Not even your ISP is able to know what video you’re watching except for the URL.
However, YouTube is not the only place where you can find videos and a video itself is not the only way that can get you hacked. Social engineering is still one of the most common ways that hackers can get access to unprotected devices.
How Can You Get Hacked?
Watching a youtube video is relatively safe but there are still risks within the website and app, and kids are especially vulnerable.
Social Engineering
It is much easier to trick people into doing something than actually breaking encryption keys. A really common trick is to get information through the comment section. While not sharing personal information publicly or with strangers, it might seem like common sense, this is still a social platform.
There are communities in which you can find people interested in the same things as you. Joining a community and making friends is not a risk per-se but if you’re not cautious you can end up falling victim to a social engineer.
Social engineering, sometimes called social hacking, can come in various forms. A friendly email, a post in a social platform, direct messaging and unfortunately, it is not always easy to identify.
Comment Sections
You might have noticed strange links in the comments section before. Sometimes these links are just pasted there by people that are looking for a way to grow their audience and gain more followers. Other times, these links can lead you to unsafe pages where you can get infected by malicious software.
Many of these malicious links offer users things like free gifts or more content to get people to click on it. Once you click on it you might be prompted to download an “update” for your player but once you do it you get infected.
