We've all heard about hackers breaking into public WIFI to steal identities. Many of us have also seen stories about hackable smart cars and hacked garage doors mysteriously going up and down. But did you know that your refrigerator, your Grandpa's pacemaker and many other devices whose security we take for granted could be the target of a hack as well?
Many South Florida business owners believe that working with an outsourced IT vendor seems expensive and complicated, so instead of hiring an IT guy they try to tackle the responsibilities themselves.
The truth is, we’d all have strong, hard to crack passwords if we had impeccable memories, but we don’t.
So instead of creating a unique password comprised lower case, upper case and special characters as recommended by PCMag, most of us are guilty of taking the easy way out and just using something like this - Saltlife2018.
The problem is, even a low-grade hacker could run a script to crack your not-so-clever password (no offense!). If a hacker gained unauthorized access to our computer, network, smartphone or tablet, it would cause us a world of trouble. Yet most of us think, “if could never happen to me!”
Just when you think you’ve got a better handle on Cyber Security! Now you can add WI-FI to the list of what makes us vulnerable to cyber-attack. This new attack, dubbed by experts, as “KRACK” is real and you’re going to want to read this! If you’re one of the 6.8 billion people who own a smartphone or one of the 300+ million global WI-FI users then you’re at risk along with the rest of the world!
Two Factor Authentication is an additional layer of protection beyond your password. With millions of people online every day, processing millions of transactions, how do you prove your identity to websites? When you’re in front of a bank teller or a bartender, it’s simple! You show them your driver’s license and you attempt to replicate the same smile you made in that photo twenty-five years ago! But how do you suppose you prove who you are to a website today?
October is Cyber Security Awareness Month. I guess "scary" doesn’t just apply to Halloween these days. One of the scariest things this season is knowing how insecure our financial information can be. Recently Equifax revealed that more than 143 million consumer accounts were compromised in a breach and then last week Yahoo announced that every single one of its' user accounts were breached back in 2013. This news isn't easy to swallow because it's serious. Serious threats to personal data are at an all-time high. Everyone, including individuals and businesses of all sizes, needs to remain diligent in their protecting themselves from hackers and privacy breaches.
If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say they had an IT "guy".... and these words were coming straight from the mouths of business owners and top level executives.
You have to remember, some companies, though small in size, can still earn millions of dollars annually. And because they’re smaller businesses they think they can't afford the help of an entire department to run their network.
