Would you use a computer without any kind of antivirus? Would you put your personal photos on that device? Use it to text and email? Access your bank? It turns out: you're probably already doing all of these things. The most sensitive, least protected device in your life is in your pocket right now.

In our previous episodes, you heard the term "vulnerabilities" more than once. But what exactly does it mean? What stands behind this big word?

For such terms and questions, we create the format of "Cyber Academy''. In each "Cyber Academy' episode, we’ll bring you a single topic - usually a basic term, an idea or a technology related to cybersecurity - and cover the basics of what you need to know about that topic, in order to better understand cybersecurity and its complexities. 

So, enough with the introductions - let’s dive straight into our first topic: Vulnerabilities.

In 2020 hospitals were hit with ransomware, corporations with phishing attacks, and we saw one of the biggest hacks ever conceived: the SolarWinds breach. It was a groundbreaking year, so in this episode we're summarizing the most important things you need to know. A SparkNotes for cybersecurity in 2020.

When the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were first approved, almost nobody could get one. Meanwhile, on the darknet, cybercriminals were offering deals on mass shipments. Most people still aren't inoculated today, yet the darknet market for vaccines is thriving.

Is the darknet getting vaccines while the rest of us can't? What's actually going on?

But even all these years later there are mysteries yet unsolved, and stories that seem to contradict what we thought we knew all along.

The recent SolarWinds breach was one of the most sophisticated, complex cyber operations in history. By the end 18,000 companies, including a dozen U.S. federal agencies, were compromised. How did the hackers pull it off?

DNS is the phone book of the internet--it's how your computer knows where to go to reach the website you want to visit. It's no stretch to say that, without functioning DNS, the internet as we know it could not exist. So imagine what would happen if you could completely compromise it..