Cybersecurity

The number of internet-connected devices in homes has been growing. It’s increased exponentially over the last decade. A typical home now has 10.37 devices connected to the internet. PCs and mobile devices make up a little over half of those and the rest are IoT devices. IoT stands for Internet of Things. It means any other type of “smart device” that connects online. IoT devices in a home can be everything from your streaming stick to your smart refrigerator. Smart baby monitors and Alexa voice assistants are also IoT. There’s also been another change that has happened over the last…

Credential theft is now at an all-time high and is responsible for more data breaches than any other type of attack. With data and business processes now largely cloud-based, a user’s password is the quickest and easiest way to conduct many different types of dangerous activities. Being logged in as a user (especially if they have admin privileges) can allow a criminal to send out phishing emails from your company account to your staff and customers. The hacker can also infect your cloud data with ransomware and demand thousands of dollars to give it back. How do you protect your…

Smartphones and tablets are often the preferred device for communications, web searching, and accessing many types of apps. They’re more portable and can be used from anywhere. We’re seeing the takeover of many activities that used to be performed on traditional computers. Now, people are using mobile devices instead. For example, Microsoft estimates that up to 80% of the workload in many enterprise organizations is now done via mobile devices. Over half of all web searches are also now conducted from a mobile device rather than a desktop PC. This has caused mobile devices to become more targeted over the…

Approximately 34% of businesses take a week or longer to regain access to their data and systems once hit with a malware attack. Malware is an umbrella term that encompasses many different types of malicious code. It can include: Viruses Ransomware Spyware Trojans Adware Key loggers And more The longer that malware sits on your system unchecked, the more damage it can do. Most forms of malware have a directive built in to spread to as many systems as possible. So, if not caught and removed right away, one computer could end up infecting 10 more on the same network…

Any cyberattack is dangerous, but the particularly devastating ones are those on supply chain companies. These can be any supplier – digital or non-digital – of goods and services. We’ve seen several attacks on the supply chain occur in 2021 that had wide-reaching consequences. These are “one-to-many” attacks where victims can go far beyond the company that was initially breached. Some recent high-profile examples of supply chain attacks include: Colonial Pipeline: A ransomware attack caused this major gas pipeline to be shut down for nearly a week. JBS: The world’s largest supplier of beef and pork products was hit with…

Stolen login credentials are a hot commodity on the Dark Web. There’s a price for every type of account from online banking to social media. For example, hacked social media accounts will go for between $30 to $80 each. The rise in reliance on cloud services has caused a big increase in breached cloud accounts. Compromised login credentials are now the #1 cause of data breaches globally, according to IBM Security’s latest Cost of a Data Breach Report. Having either a personal or business cloud account compromised can be very costly. It can lead to a ransomware infection, compliance breach,…

Phishing is the number one method of attack delivery for everything from ransomware to credential theft. We are very aware of it coming by email, but other types of phishing have been growing rapidly. In recent years, phishing over social media has skyrocketed by 500%. There has also been a 100% increase in fraudulent social media accounts. Phishing over social media often tricks the victims because people tend to let their guard down when on social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. They’re socializing and not looking for phishing scams. However, phishing scammers are out there looking for you…

Whether you work remotely or in an office, the line between personal and work tasks can become blurred when working on your company computer. If you’re in front of a computer for most of your time during work, then it’s not unusual to get attached to your desktop PC. Over time, this can lead to doing personal things on a work computer. At first, it might just be checking personal email while on a lunch break. But as the line continues to get crossed, it can end up with someone using their work computer just as much for personal reasons…

In 2020, 75% of companies around the world experienced a phishing attack. Phishing remains one of the biggest dangers to your business’s health and wellbeing because it’s the main delivery method for all types of cyberattacks. One phishing email can be responsible for a company succumbing to ransomware and having to face costly downtime. It can also lead a user to unknowingly hand over the credentials to a company email account that the hacker then uses to send targeted attacks to customers. Phishing takes advantage of human error, and some phishing emails use sophisticated tactics to fool the recipient into…

It’s not unusual to change a mobile number from time to time. For example, when you move, you may want a number that is local to the area you just moved to. Companies also may end up recycling mobile numbers throughout their staff as people come and go. If you don’t properly detach your mobile phone number from all the accounts it’s used with, you can leave yourself open to identity theft, credit card fraud, and other crimes. In a 2021 Princeton University study, it was found that 66% of mobile numbers listed as available by major mobile service providers were…