In the online world, there are many ways to steal someone's digital identity, mainly including the following: - **Phishing** - **How**: Attackers send fake emails, instant messaging messages or create fake websites by pretending to be a legitimate institution (such as a bank, a well-known e-commerce platform, etc.). These disguises look very similar to the real institution's website and trick users into entering sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, etc. - **Example**: An email disguised as a bank notification states that the user's account is at risk and needs to click a link for verification. Once the user clicks the link, they will enter the fake bank website and the entered information will be stolen. - **Malware attack** - **How**: Malware such as viruses, Trojans, and spyware are implanted into the target device. Viruses damage system files, Trojans run in the background to steal information, and spyware secretly collects various user data, including login credentials, browsing history, etc. - **Example**: A user downloads and installs a software from an untrusted source, which is actually a Trojan program. It records the username and password entered when the user logs in to online banking or other important accounts, and sends this information to the attacker. - **Social Engineering Attack** - **Principle**: Attackers take advantage of human weaknesses, such as trust, curiosity, and sympathy, and gain their trust by communicating with users, thereby inducing users to disclose sensitive information. - **Example**: Attackers pretend to be IT technical support personnel of the company and call employees, saying that there is a problem with the company network and they need to obtain the employee's account password for inspection. Employees may tell the other party relevant information without careful verification due to their concern for the normal operation of the company network. - **Data Leakage** - **Principle**: Some websites or service providers have improper security measures, resulting in user data being hacked or leaked by internal personnel. These leaked data may contain users' digital identity information. - **Example**: A large social media platform was hacked, and the registered email addresses, password hash values and other information of millions of users were leaked. Attackers can use this data to try to log in with the same password on other websites, thereby obtaining users' digital identities on other platforms. - **Public Wi-Fi Trap** - **Principle**: Free Wi-Fi provided in some public places may have security risks. Criminals can create fake Wi-Fi hotspots with names similar to regular hotspots. When users connect to these fake hotspots, attackers can intercept all data transmitted by users on the network, including login information, transaction records, etc. - **Example**: At airports, cafes, and other places, users connect to a hotspot called "Airport-Free-Wi-Fi", which is actually created by an attacker. After connecting to this hotspot, users log in to online banking to transfer money, and attackers can obtain information such as the target account number and amount of the transfer.