Staying ahead can feel impossible, but understanding that perfection is impossible can free you to make decisions about managing risk.
Every few years, there is a significant and often unexpected shift in the tactics that online criminals use to exploit us for profit. In the early 2000s, criminals ran roughshod through people’s computers by exploiting simple buffer overflows and scripting flaws in email clients and using SQL injection attacks. That evolved into drive-by downloads through flaws in browsers and their clunky plug-ins. Late in the decade, criminals began employing social components, initially offering up fake antivirus products and then impersonating law enforcement agencies to trick us into paying imaginary fines and tickets. In 2013, someone got the bright idea to recycle an old trick at mass scale: ransomware.
…
