Skip to main content

How hackable is your life?

An episode of Real Future has shown how easy it is for the digital lives of everyday people to be watched, hacked, and even stolen away completely.

In the video below, Fusion.net's News Director Kevin Roose visits ‘DefCon’ - a hacking convention in Las Vegas. He then invites hackers to attempt to infiltrate his life over the space of two weeks using whatever methods they could think of. Predictably the hackers succeed, and Kevin finds himself at the complete mercy of strangers who could destroy his life in a couple of clicks.


Jessica Clark, a social engineering hacker, used vishing - a type of phishing scam which uses a telephone instead of email or coding - to gain access to Kevin's mobile phone through his mobile phone network provider. (1:37)

Jessica easily convinced the person on the other end of the phone to hand over Kevin's email address, and from there to set her up a new pin and password, locking Kevin out of his mobile account entirely in minutes. She did all this using nothing more than a phone call, and a recording of a crying baby.

Kevin's laptop wasn't safe either. Dan Tentler, an experienced hacker, was able to send Kevin a phishing email and fool him into clicking a link. This gave Dan full access to his computer, allowing him to create realistic looking pop ups asking Kevin for account and password information. (4:39)

As Kevin was using a password manager, Dan had access to all of his passwords and card information, allowing Dan into every aspect of Kevin's life and impersonate him almost completely.

The video ends by urging viewers to remember that the likelihood of a hacker targeting you with this amount of force is fairly slim - but it is important to think seriously about online security, and how you and your business could be at risk.

Do you think your practices and procedures could stop this kind of hack? Transcendit can help you to review your current practices and advise on ways to strengthen your security.


The Transcendit Way

Transcendit understand that when you choose to work with us, whether we're taking care of your IT, app or web development, you're trusting us with part of your business. So whether we're looking after your computers, phone systems or servers we always do things 'the Transcendit way'.

The whole of our team adhere to the same values, beliefs and policies - the principles that were written when Transcendit first formed in 2000. Whether you come to us for cloud services or recovery backup you can be confident that you'll always receive the same excellent service.

The Transcendit way outlines how we do business; following the same straightforward principles with every client and customer, regardless of how big or small they may be.

That means we get to know you and your business. We offer you a friendly, professional and efficient service, and we'll always be honest with you.
We understand that not everybody speaks fluent IT, so we try to explain things in a way that is simple and clear. We always spend as much time as is necessary explaining things to you.
If you need to talk to us about something, no matter how insignificant, we are only ever a phone call away – and we’re never too busy to make you a cup of tea and have a sit down with you in person.
We understand how frustrating it can be when things are late. When we schedule an appointment with you, we are there when you’re expecting us. If something prevents us from getting there, we always call you in advance to let you know.
Sometimes things can go wrong, but we never lie to you or try to cover something up. If things go askew we tell you what’s happened and how we plan to prevent it affecting your business.
We want you to continuously benefit from working with us. We regularly discuss your business and make suggestions for improving systems and processes wherever we can – but we never try to push you into a purchase.
When we quote a fixed price, that's always the amount we charge – you won’t find any nasty surprises on a bill from us. If you are paying by time and materials, we inform you if our approximations could change.
We understand the importance of privacy for your business and your customers. We respect the confidentiality of your data, and we will never pass on your information to third parties.
We appreciate it when you take the time to give us feedback. A system called CustomerSure records our client's responses, so you can trust that our reviews are from real people.
Find out what they're saying here.
Who can do without Chris in their lives, I certainly couldn't! Well done again. Eileen, Framehouse

Based on 12075 reviews our customers rate us 9.8/10. Reviews and ratings by Customersure. 09-October-2024

Transcendit are proud sponsors of CHUF, the Children's Heart Unit Fund.

Transcendit is a Living Wage employer
Transcendit is a Microsoft Gold certified partner
VMWARE partner
Vipre partner
IPCortex partner
WithSecure partner
DELL partner
Barracuda partner
Veeam partner
N-Able partner