So you've survived the year with no serious data breaches or other cyber security mishaps. That's good news. The bad news, however, is that you'll have to do it all over again to get through the whole year that way, and the end of the year is a lot rougher.
According to Engadget, While 143 million US residents were affected by the Equifax breach, they weren't the only ones impacted. Nearly 700,000 UK residents also had their information stolen -- including phone numbers, driver's license numbers, email addresses, user names, passwords and partial credit card details -- and UK authorities are now investigating the company.
Everyone’s worst nightmare is to deal with cyber security and identity theft. According to Future Crimes, nearly 20 percent of Americans have been victims of personal identity theft. Once bad hackers compromise your connected devices, they are free to steal your bank info, tax records, and other financial data. This has been a very active season in terms of data breaches. Here's how to stay safe this season:
1. Train employees to create strong passwords. You can have all the flashy technology out there, but if your employees compromise your network, it’s useless. Lead your staff through good password practices such as having separate passwords for different accounts, and writing down passwords for safe-keeping away from the computer.
2. Enable disk encryption. Disk encryption helps you protect your information by converting it into unreadable code should an unauthorized party attempt to access it.
3. Ensure you have a firewall. And test it. Nearly any internet connection can be vulnerable to hackers without some sort of protection in place, and firewalls are designed to prevent unauthorized access to or from private networks.
4. Install antivirus and malware defense agents. If an outside party makes it through your firewall, you’re going to need a malware defense agent. And if the malware agent doesn’t address the threat, the antivirus blogs the application from running.
5. Have a solid backup with off-site replication. Recover failed communications and protect data with off-site replication. Storing data off-site allows you to minimize the scrambling to retrieve your data should a breach occur. It’s the difference between a complete loss and a recoverable inconvenience.
About the Expert:
Michael Lewis is CIO of Copper State Communications, Arizona's largest IT and telecom services provider for over 30 years. He collaborates with and advises clients' IT departments, formulates strategic goals and more. He had has training with Microsoft, VMWare, Cisco and more.
