Tillmann Prüfer is a member of the editor-in-chief of “Zeit-Magazin”.
Scenarios for the great blackout are being designed at every opportunity today. If the power goes off, not just for a few minutes but for a few days, then democracy would be in jeopardy. No more money would come out of the ATMs, the Internet would be gone, traffic would collapse and there would not even be water coming out of the tap.
Looting and robbery follow later. Civilization depends on the socket, and if nothing comes out of it, then civil society lasts about as long as the remaining battery life of your own smartphone.
A problem would not only be saboteurs who cut through important cables, but hackers who penetrate company networks. Municipal utilities are said to be an easy target because the infrastructure is not well protected. Hackers don’t necessarily need heavy equipment for such an attack, they just need a gullible employee – like me.
The greatest risk here are people who thoughtlessly open e-mails that strangers have sent them, so-called phishing e-mails. They’re camouflaged to look like they come from their own company. They have the subject line: “Urgent!!” or “Invoice”.
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In the text, they give the impression that something has gone wrong and that employees have to click on something because of it. For example, the apparent human resources department informs you that you accidentally received too much salary and will therefore receive less next month (“new payslip see attachment”).
I harm my business even without getting hacked
Or an e-mail comes: “Where are you, we are waiting for you in the meeting!!! (Zoom link attached)”. Then it only takes one click and tons of malware loads onto the company computer and paralyzes it. Then suddenly all computers are blocked and work is over.
Equally at risk are employees who use simple passwords (password123) or who use very complicated passwords (?ncj##eeZ&RӤ), but which are the same on every site they use. I, on the other hand, belong to the small group of people who use the same, very simple password on every page.
More columns by Tillmann Prüfer
I’m such a bad employee that I should actually be getting paid by a hostile intelligence agency. But because there are always so many warnings that I should never open emails that look like phishing, I try to stick to them.
However, I quite often get emails with the subject: “We’re waiting for you in the meeting, where are you???”. I no longer react to them. Even if they come again and again, with increased urgency. As a nice side effect, I no longer have Zoom meetings. Maybe employees like me are doing enough damage to the company without hackers.
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