Have you ever thought that maybe having just a password to log into your computer isn’t enough to keep hackers out? Has the thought ever occurred to you that you may be leaving a ‘back door to your personal information’ wide open.
Well, there is just such a back door. A remote access program which is being used and allows hackers right into your most confidential information and all because of a lack of password protection on the user’s end.
Alan Crowetz demonstrated live to Channel 5 News how he had full access to documents with industrial information, plans for power plants, even highly confidential patient data. This is all data the computer user thought they alone could access.
Alan showed live on air how he had full access to sensitive information as if he was sitting in South Korea at that computer. The program is called VNC and is a remote control program designed to put the tech in front of the computer and it is used by many businesses to allow tech support to troubleshoot technical problems on their computer.
It is totally free and is a very useful program. However, the problem is that a lot of users are not protecting the remote access with passwords. Alan showed the news channel how easy it was to look at someone else’s screen. He merely downloaded VNC viewer, typed in an IP address and if there was no password in place, he had instant access.
He explained that he saw a lot of industrial plants which looked like power plants or water plants or even, heaven forbid, nuclear plants, where he could actually go into the computer and change settings. He even found doctors’ offices which despite being strictly regulate under HIPPA laws, had files open and easily accessible to anyone.
Their forms, their files and their servers may be as secure as Fort Knox but if I can ‘sit at a user’s computer’ logged on as them, then it is as if they have given the keys to someone. That someone is going to get right in.
Alan made two suggestions. Add a password to your remote access program or you are not familiar with how to use it, uninstall it from your computer.
