Life is hectic. As a small business owner, you have too much going on to worry about the possibility of identity theft. One breach of your personal and business information can mean thousands of dollars of charges being made in your name that creditors are expecting you to pay.
Having your browser’s home page changed might seem like something a prankster would do, but it’s the sign of a more serious security breach. After email, browser-based attacks are the second most common method of malware injection.
How many times in the last two months have you entered your credit card information into an online form? How many times did you give your mobile phone number to a website?
When you think of identity theft, do you worry about the hassle of police reports or the frustration of trying to restore your credit? Do you fear finding bills for thousands of dollars of charges in your mailbox with no way to hold the perpetrator accountable because they could be halfway across the world?
Living part of our lives in an online world means sharing more information than we used to. From providing credit card details when shopping online to storing your name and address in multiple databases in the internet world, we have a lot more need for identity protection these days.
If you have a device that you don’t use daily, you might be surprised to see it running slow when you’ve booted it up after several days. You might even think that your computer needs servicing or should be replaced because it keeps locking up on you.
If you’ve watched any sci-fi movies, like I, Robot or the Terminator series, you probably understand the perceived dangers of the digital world. Primarily the unrealistic dangers of artificial intelligence. Now, I’m not saying that AI won’t be a threat in the future but it’s important to note that right now the people using the Internet pose a much bigger threat than an incoming Robo-Apocalypse. And I’m not just talking about cybercriminals. Regular, everyday human error is what poses the most dangerous threat to your cybersecurity.
I remember the first time my dad gave me a box of tools. I was moving out for the first time, and he gave me a box filled with an old hammer, two screwdrivers (one flathead, the other Phillips head), a rusty wrench, and a tape measure. It wasn’t much but it showed me that he wanted to make sure that I was ok. He gave me those tools so that I could fix any problems that came up in my time away from him.
Seeing a data breach mentioned in the news from time to time for companies like Facebook has become commonplace. But often, it’s not something that may directly impact us in a tangible way.
Installing patches and updates for your operating system is one of the vital best practices for good cybersecurity. Approximately 60% of data breaches occur because people haven’t installed an available patch, leaving their system at risk.
