{"id":14630,"date":"2010-01-26T12:15:23","date_gmt":"2010-01-26T17:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/?p=14630"},"modified":"2010-01-26T12:15:23","modified_gmt":"2010-01-26T17:15:23","slug":"ask-leo-can-hackers-see-my-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/ask-leo-can-hackers-see-my-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask Leo: Can Hackers See My Data?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/20090929leonotenboomwp.jpg\" alt=\"askleo\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"attachment wp-att-7652 alignleft\" \/><\/p>\n<p>By Leo Notenboom<\/p>\n<p><i>I&#8217;ve heard that instant messages through AOL\/Yahoo\/MSN can be read by hackers that &#8220;sniff&#8221; the messages leaving my network. Is this true?<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Yes.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s actually true for all the data that comes and goes on your internet connection: web pages, emails, instant messaging conversations and more.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the time it simply doesn&#8217;t matter. Honest.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, there are definitely times and situations when you really do need to be careful.<\/p>\n<p>Data traveling on a network such as the internet can be seen by many other<br \/>\nmachines. Local machines connected via a hub, for example, all see the data<br \/>\nbeing sent to and from all the other machines connected to the same hub. As the<br \/>\ndata travels across the internet, it actually travels across many devices each<br \/>\nof which can &#8220;see&#8221; the data.<\/p>\n<p>Sounds scary.<\/p>\n<p>The good news is that&#8217;s actually pretty hard to find data transmitted to and<br \/>\nfrom a <em>specific<\/em> machine unless you&#8217;re on the same network segment. For<br \/>\nexample, if you&#8217;re connected to the internet via DSL, other machines sharing<br \/>\nthat DSL connection might watch your traffic, but random machines out on the<br \/>\ninternet would have an <em>extremely<\/em> difficult time tracking it down.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not something I worry about much at home.<\/p>\n<p>However, there <em>are<\/em> scenarios that you should be very aware of.<\/p>\n<div class=\"pullQuote\">&#8220;&#8230; if you&#8217;re on the road you might simply wait until<br \/>\nyou&#8217;re home to access sensitive sites like online banking or others.&#8221;<\/div>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Wireless access points<\/strong> operate much like a hub. Any<br \/>\nwireless adapter within range can see <strong>all<\/strong> of the network<br \/>\ntraffic in the area. Visited any open (meaning not WPA-encrypted) wireless<br \/>\nhotspots lately? Anyone in the coffee shop or library, or even just outside on<br \/>\nthe street or a nearby building, could be sniffing your traffic.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Hotel or other third-party provided internet connections<\/strong><br \/>\nare also vulnerable, since you have no idea what, or who, is sharing or<br \/>\nwatching your connection. It&#8217;s possible that you&#8217;re on a hub, and the room next<br \/>\ndoor or down the hall could be watching your traffic, or it&#8217;s possible that the<br \/>\nhotel staff themselves are tapped into the internet traffic to and from all the<br \/>\nrooms.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Landlord-provided internet connections<\/strong>, or those provided<br \/>\nby or shared with a roommate or housemate fall into the same category: whomever<br \/>\nset it up could very easily be watching the internet traffic going to and from<br \/>\nthe connection(s) that they provide you.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Your connection at work<\/strong> can also easily be monitored by<br \/>\nyour employer. In fact, the only difference between your employer and a hotel<br \/>\nor landlord provided connection is that in most places the employer snooping on<br \/>\nyour use of their connection is legal, whereas the others typically are<br \/>\nnot.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ask-leo.com\/can_hackers_see_data_going_to_and_from_my_computer.html\" target=\"_blank\">What Can You Do?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>[This post is excerpted with Leo&#8217;s permission from his <a href=\"http:\/\/ask-leo.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ask Leo<\/a> blog.]<\/p>\n<p><i>Leo Notenboom has been involved in the tech industry for nearly 30 years. After retiring from an 18 year career as a Microsoft Software Engineer Leo went on to create <a href=\"http:\/\/ask-leo.com\/\">Ask Leo!<\/a>, a free web site where he answers real questions from ordinary computer users.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>FaceBook URL:   <a href=\"http:\/\/ask-leo.com\/fb\" target=\"_blank\">Leo&#8217;s Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Twitter URL:     <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/askleo\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/twitter.com\/askleo<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/techtalk.pcpitstop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/20090929leonotenboomwp.jpg\" alt=\"askleo\" class=\"attachment wp-att-7167 alignleft\" \/><\/p>\n<p>By Leo Notenboom<\/p>\n<p><i>I&#8217;ve heard that instant messages through AOL\/Yahoo\/MSN can be read by hackers that &#8220;sniff&#8221; the messages leaving my network. Is this true?<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Yes.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s actually true for all the data that comes and goes on your internet connection: web pages, emails, instant messaging conversations and more.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the time it simply doesn&#8217;t matter. Honest.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, there are definitely times and situations when you really do need to be careful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":66012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[923,924,925,926,23,927,53,928,929,930],"class_list":["post-14630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-leo-notenboom","tag-connection","tag-connection-web","tag-dsl","tag-employer","tag-home","tag-network-segment","tag-web","tag-wireless-access-points","tag-wireless-adapter","tag-yahoo-msn"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Ask Leo: Can Hackers See My Data?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"By Leo Notenboom I&#039;ve heard that instant messages through AOL\/Yahoo\/MSN can be read by hackers that &quot;sniff&quot; the messages leaving my network. Is this true? Yes. It&#039;s actually true for all the data that comes and goes on your internet connection: web pages, emails, instant messaging conversations and more. Most of the time it simply doesn&#039;t matter. Honest. On the other hand, there are definitely times and situations when you really do need to be careful.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/ask-leo-can-hackers-see-my-data\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ask Leo: Can Hackers See My Data?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Leo Notenboom I&#039;ve heard that instant messages through AOL\/Yahoo\/MSN can be read by hackers that &quot;sniff&quot; the messages leaving my network. Is this true? Yes. 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Notenboom is the owner of Puget Sound Software, LLC and the Leo in Ask Leo!. Leo has been in the personal computer and software industry since 1979, as a software engineer, a manager of software engineers, and as a consultant. In 1983 Leo joined what was then a medium sized local company called Microsoft and spent the next 18 years in a wide variety of groups working on a wide variety of software. If you're running Microsoft Windows, if you've used a Microsoft development tool or Microsoft Money, or if you've ever purchased a ticket through Expedia, there's a good chance you've been touched by some of his work. 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