Hacking Human Mind

The word hacking is almost a cliche by now, more often than not, it is an excuse. In casual conversations you will at least hear the phrase “my account has been hacked” with reference to social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter. Equally, “Has your account been hacked?” Phrase is also thrown whenever a friend posts or sends something that is out of character.

In the just concluded presidential elections, one of the candidates claimed that the computers systems for the electoral body had been hacked and that the results released, were as a result of a computer algorithm. It must have dawned on the politicos that Hacking is a complex concept in the court of public opinion .

What is hacking and how do you hack humans? Simply put, Hacking is an attempt to exploit a computer system or a private network inside a computer. Simply put, it is the unauthorised access to or control over computer network security systems for some illicit purpose.

The steps to a successful hack are hinged on hacker’s capability but more often than not start from exploiting weakness in humans. This is referred to as social engineering and to evoke emotion, hacking the human.

At Metropol, our product is information. We collect information, process that information and sell it. In the absence these information our business does not have a product. Should the quality of these information be compromised then we end up with a bad product. Equally due to the sensitivity of our information, we cannot afford to expose these information to the wrong people. Great efforts have been put in place to safeguard our information assets. We have built a fortress around those computer based assets, however we have doors and windows into our fortress with the consequence that people manage these openings.

People are the weakest link any cybersecurity efforts by any organization. This is purely because humans respond to emotions, kindness