It might seem counter-intuitive, but cyber crime might end up making the Internet better. When something is broken you fix it or you throw it away, and no one is rushing to throw away the Internet right now. So people are instead looking for creative solutions to securing the Internet over and above the failed password protection and firewall ideas. Hackers are going to get in and it’s just a matter of when. The name of the game now is preventing them from doing much damage.
Blockchain technology is one of the forerunners for the tech that is going to save the Internet. Blockchain technology can be used to decentralize the web so that your data is in your own hands instead of the hands of large data banks. Hackers would theoretically have to hack each person individually instead of hacking one big target and gaining access to millions. There would be no more major data breaches under this system.
Encryption is another technique that is being used currently to safeguard the web. Protonmail is a Swiss company that provides end-to-end encrypted email that not even they can gain access to. Your mail is encrypted in your own web browser before it ever reaches their servers, and since Protonmail doesn’t store your passwords it can never gain access to, or give another entity access to, your email, even if their servers are compromised by hackers.
A virtual private network, or VPN, can also help you to conceal your identity online while also preventing WiFi spoofing attacks and many other common cyber threats. Duckduckgo is a search engine that doesn’t use cookies to track users, making them more secure as they browse, as is Brave. The less you are able to be tracked online the less likely you are to be compromised by hackers.
Some people believe that cybersecurity is a zero-sum game, meaning that for the Internet to work there must be winners and losers. Fortunately this is not the case at all. As the Internet grows and changes new problems have to be identified and fixed. There’s a reason we’re not all driving around in the Ford Model T. Old designs have to be updated for user experience, safety, and reliability and the Internet is nothing more than a tool that should make our lives easier. Learn more about how the decentralized web could revolutionize information security from this infographic!
