An experienced hacker has warned us about what to be scared of in the future, based on his three decades of experience on the dark web.
If you haven't heard of it before, the dark web is essentially where a bulk of criminal activity takes place in this technology-driven modern era.
It can organise or start carrying out some of the most disturbing acts, media or actions ever seen - and can easily leave you scarred for life. So naturally, people all over the world are interested in what it really holds.
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The vigilantes of today can sometimes be hackers, but I'm not talking about the ones that try to steal your data and gain access to your money, but the ones that try to prevent the bad people online from getting the better of innocent users.
However, a lot of hackers choose to go down the darker path, as a hacking expert has pointed out, even highlighting some of the scarier things that he has encountered.
Some of these include 'destructive' people online that 'want to see the world burn', as the hacker says that he is now a 'white hat' - a good samaritan that wants to improve the greater good - after years of being a 'black hat', the opposite.
He is often asked to find weak spots in security software and revealed that he does 'things like hunt the criminals who are targeting hospitals or who are targeting businesses'.
But when explaining what he is most worried about in the future in a YouTube video with VICE, he replied: "I don't think we have to worry too much about our nuclear arsenal being taken over movie style and used against us.
"But I do think we have to worry about major impacts to financial markets or potential impacts to things like electricity production facilities," he highlighted.
In the clip, he also spoke about malicious software that can be used to block someone's access to a computer, explaining ransomware: "It is an attack technique that's been around for decades.
"Modern ransomware is usually a piece of malware that gets on your system, encrypts all of your data and then holds that hostage demanding that you contact the gangs that are operating it, paying them in some form of currency before they'll give you the key that decrypts your data."
Speaking about some ethical dilemmas that he's faced in his job, he recalled: "I've watched hospitals get encrypted and people are left with a choice: do I pay to decrypt the data or do I risk lives?"
"Back when it started, ransomware was charging hundreds of dollars, maybe thousands of dollars for individual targets," he said, comparing his present to the past.
"The bigger payouts that we're talking about now are easily into the tens of millions. This last, most recent attack, they offered $70 million dollars for the campaign key, which is the key that would have unlocked every single computer encrypted during that attack. So we're talking high-stakes games here," the hacker claimed.
Topics: Technology, Crime, Money, YouTube
Joshua Nair