Overusing the Term Hacking Impacts Security Awareness

I’ve heard the term hacking used for non technical things a few too many times lately. It makes me wonder if perhaps its overuse is making the average person not care about security because they believe it’s a purely technical issue that’s beyond their ability, and so not worth their concern.

I recently performed an experiment with my family to test this theory. First I asked my mom to read an article describing a recent security breach where malicious individuals sent a fax requesting an update to the DNS settings for the victim’s website.

The article frequently used the word ‘hacking’, which in this context seemed misleading. When she was done, I asked her how the ‘hack’ had occurred.

SOURCE: tripwire.com