Recently, even hacking firms are themselves subject to being hacked, rendering the valuable viruses they’ve concocted, sometimes for sale to repressive governments, effectively worthless. Ryan Dewhurst, of Dewhurst Security, urges us not to be afraid of hackers using their technical prowess to imminently endanger human life: “I think the most damage an electronic attack ('cyber attack') can cause today is financial and political. Just last week, Hacking Team, a company who sold viruses to repressive governments, police agencies and intelligence agencies for the purpose of spying on their own people were severely hacked. The very viruses they sold have now been released online for anyone to study, meaning the very core of their business, their Intellectual Property (IP) is now mostly worthless. Not only that, their internal files show who they have sold their malicious software to, who is using it and for what purposes; a political minefield. Cases like Hacking Team's are much more likely today. We have seen the same with the Sony Pictures Entertainment breach from last year and many other countless examples.”

Jack Daniel, a well-known infosec blogger, analyzes the risk as such: “If I tell my local coffee shop all of the threats they face for using a crappy point-of-sale credit card processing system they’ll simply shut down and ignore me. If I tell them the Internet is cool, but can be scary- and they should really hound their service providers about not using any common or default passwords, they’ll be safer and my credit card will be safer. Not safe, but safer.” Jack stresses, however, that we keep things in perspective: “The thing to remember is that the entire Internet, as well as most networks and computer systems, is completely broken. Yet they continue to drive the global economy in ways previously unimaginable.”

The following, however, is a list of just some of the ways hackers will be able to kill, hurt or rob you from anywhere with an internet connection. If you're not scared now, you will be.