Guest Post: Take The Power Back From Hackers - Perpetual Storage, Inc.
July 20, 2021 | By Terri Harris In Cybersecurity, Data and identity security, Off-Site Storage, Storage-as-a-Service, Tiered Storage
How To Keep Control Of Your Data, And Avoid Becoming A Cybercrime Victim
by Earl Foote – CEO/Founder | Nexus IT Consultants
2020 was a banner year for cybercriminals. The number of phishing emails and social engineering scams that use the COVID-19 pandemic as a topic represents the single largest thematic series of cybercrime attacks ever.
The bottom line is that cybercrime is more prevalent, destructive, and expensive than ever. If you want to take the power back from hackers, you have to take action.
16 Tips To Turn The Tide Against Cybercriminals
Length and Complexity. Keep in mind that the easier it is for you to remember a password, the easier it’ll be for a hacker to figure it out. That’s why short and simple passwords are so common – users worry about forgetting them, so they make them too easy to remember, which presents an easy target for hackers.
Numbers, Case, and Symbols. Another factor in the password’s complexity is whether or not it incorporates numbers, cases, and symbols. While it may be easier to remember a password that’s all lower-case letters, it’s important to mix in numbers, capitals, and symbols in order to increase the complexity.
Personal Information. Many users assume that information specific to them will be more secure — the thinking, for example, is that your birthday is one of 365 possible options in a calendar year, not to mention your birth year itself. The same methodology applies to your pet’s name, your mother’s maiden name, etc. However, given the ubiquity of social media, it’s not difficult for hackers to research a target through Facebook, LinkedIn, and other sites to determine when they were born, information about their family, personal interests, etc.
Pattern and Sequences. Like the other common mistakes, many people use patterns as passwords in order to better remember them, but again, that makes the password really easy to guess. “abc123”, or the first row of letters on the keyboard, “qwerty”, etc., are extremely easy for hackers to guess.
Have Your Patches And Updates Managed
A physical air gapped backup solution will truly eliminate all risks and will ensure total protection against both malicious cyberattacks and rogue administrators, or other insider threats.
We recommend the Granite Cloud Isolated Tier solution by Perpetual Storage Inc. which is not a software-based solution. Your critical corporate data will be placed into a physically offsite and offline storage, safe and secure, deep in a maximum-security granite mountain vault.
Making this affordable investment into a comprehensive backup data recovery solution enables you to restore your data at a moment’s notice when necessary. Be sure to:
Validate your backups to verify that they maintain their integrity.
Make sure your backup is in a physical air gapped state.
Delegate And Be Resourceful With Your Team
Appoint a reliable staff member to liaison with your IT team and make sure that your employees and volunteers strictly adhere to your cybersecurity plan.
Along with your IT professionals, this person will be your point-of-contact to make sure you are adhering to IT security compliance regulations and standards so you can stay in good standing with governments and donors.
It’s essential that you determine exactly what data or security breach regulations could affect you. You need to know how to respond to data loss. All employees and contractors should be educated on how to report any loss or theft of data, and who to report to.
Your staff can have a significant effect on your cybersecurity – either they know enough to keep your assets secure, or they don’t, and thus present a serious threat to your security.
When you suspect an attack has taken place, you need to act quickly. Contrary to popular belief, some businesses take weeks or even months to realize they’ve been penetrated. If you suspect something has occurred, do the following:
Scan your systems for virus or malware infections.
Disconnect devices from the Internet and perform a factory reset – ideally, your data will all be backed up elsewhere.
File a report with the local police and make sure there is a record of the incident.
An effective MDM policy should also instill safe and secure practices for employees that use personal devices for business purposes.
Only Visit Secure Websites
Cybercriminals have been known to make fake social media accounts online in order to get to know their targets, develop relationships with them, and then steal their information. Don’t be fooled – be skeptical of anyone you know only through a digital medium, and never reveal valuable or sensitive information to them.
One of the primary ways that cybercriminals take advantage of users is to trick them into downloading malware. That’s why you need to train yourself to act cautiously to avoid downloading malware.
It’s a matter of thinking before you click something — never download a file, whether online or as an attachment from an email if you’re unsure of the source. It’s always better to check with the sender to confirm, prior to downloading or opening a suspect file.
Safe computing means being careful about who and what you trust. It’s important to use discretion when determining whether a free Wi-Fi hotspot is really worth the risk.
Keep these tips in mind when considering the risks of unsecured Wi-Fi:
Test And Assess Your Cybersecurity
Determine how your data is handled and protected. Also, define who has access to your data and under what circumstances. Create a list of the employees, volunteers, donors, or contractors who have access to specific data, under what circumstances, and how those access privileges will be managed and tracked.
You must know precisely what data you have, where it’s kept, and who has rights to access it.
Don’t Make It Easy For Cybercriminals
The point of all this is that you can’t afford to overlook your cybersecurity. Depending on the current state of your digital defenses, improving your security may not be all that complicated or expensive.
As that old saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. Do what you need to do to “prevent” now, so you don’t have to pay for the “cure” later. To start, that means understanding the threats you currently face.
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