Cybersecurity Awareness Month was established twenty years ago by The President of the United States and the U.S. Congress as a dedicated month for the public and private sectors to work together to raise awareness about the importance of cybersecurity. While cybersecurity has become increasingly challenging to maintain, there are a few simple things everyone can do. 1. Strengthen Your Passwords and Use MFA: Multifactor authentication (MFA) is a security process that requires more than one authentication method from independent sources to verify the user’s identity. Simple step: Turn on MFA 2. Stay Cautious of Phishing Attempts: Phishing is the fraudulent practice of sending emails or other messages purporting to be from reputable companies to induce individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers. Simple step: Avoiding clicking on links or downloading attachments from unknown sources 3. Keep Software Updated: If a criminal gets into our devices through a security flaw, they will look for sensitive information to exploit. Technology providers issue software updates to “patch” security weak spots as quickly as possible. If we don’t install them, they can’t protect us! Simple step: Turn on automatic updates 4. Secure Your Home Network: Small vulnerabilities in your home Wi-Fi network could cause problems. Simple step: Change the default name of your home Wi-Fi and use a secure password 6. Backup Your Data Regularly: Even with an excellent cybersecurity plan, bad actors can still gain access to your data. Ensure you have a backup of your most important pictures, videos and documents. Simple step: Back up your data Simple steps can add up to a robust cybersecurity plan. Set aside an hour as soon as possible to ensure your data is backed up, you have a secure network, your software is updated, and MFA is turned on wherever possible. These steps, combined with a bit of diligence, should be sufficient for most people’s security plans. Additional Resources:
Cyberattacks aren’t just a threat to big businesses and governments. Small business owners need to ensure their data and cloud-based systems are secure. This includes ensuring employees use strong passwords and understand how to identify phishing attacks. It’s also important to regularly conduct security audits and keep software updated.
The role of IT in business has evolved over the years to encompass much more than just making sure the internet is up and running and everyone has the hardware they need. It now involves everything from security and cloud-based storage to data backup and more. Managing all of these aspects can be a lot to ask of your business, particularly if there isn’t a specific IT role or partnership in place.
The online world has become a prominent element in our lives, especially when discussing kids. From ages eight and beyond, children and young adults seem addicted to using social media, mobile gaming, watching cartoons, movies, and shows, and chatting with friends.
Peering through 2024 and beyond, given the pace of technological innovation and digital advancements, it shouldn’t be surprising to see that the future of online privacy will comprise a dynamic synergy of interconnected trends.
Cyberattacks not only cause hefty financial losses but they also tend to cause businesses to lose the trust and loyalty they have spent years and millions of dollars building. And while every business, big or small, does its best to secure itself from cyberattacks,
When it comes to comprehensive information protection and security, it doesn’t get better than an ISMS (Information Security Management System). It is essentially an umbrella term that comprises a company’s total policies about its security, implementation and practices,
As there are rampant advancements in digital technology and more streamlined cybersecurity trends and innovation, there is no question that modern businesses require avant-garde security solutions to keep their mission-critical data safe, compete with confidence,
In purely technical and mathematical terms, hashing is described as a one-way data security process that involves converting any data into a bunch of nondescript gibberish that makes it impossible to decrypt or decode in any way.
There’s no question that data is among the most critical elements of any modern business, big or small. This means that any unforeseen interruptions in the form of downtime for IT maintenance, cyberattack, natural disasters, etc.