Fight Against Hackers & Protect Your Employees
Here at Cyber Ascend Technologies, fighting is in our DNA! Some of our team members were volunteers to fight forest fires, but now we all work together to snuff out virtual disasters and help your team fight cyber hackers.
We fight for our clients and make sure their data health is protected. One of the things we are most vigilant against is hackers. It is not a benign world out there in the cyber sphere, and some people and entities spend every hour, every day, trying to figure out how to capitalize on your company’s potential I.T. weaknesses.
They know, and you should know, that one of the areas where a company is most at risk is its employees. The human element is a hacker’s greatest potential!
The firefighters in us watch for sparks traveling toward wood piles, ready to ignite a disaster. Likewise, you need to watch the hacker sparks being thrown at your staff waiting for one small blunder that can put your whole system at risk.
Not to worry, there is a lot you can do! Here is a list for your employees to follow as they watch for signs of potential threats to ensure that your cyber fortress is secure. (Feel free to distribute this list to your team!)
1. Get aggressive with your password attitude and habits
Passwords feel like a nuisance with so many to keep track of, and remembering them all is a nightmare! It is easy to believe a cyberattack will not happen to you, and hackers use this to their advantage. Cybercrime is big business, and a hacker is looking for you—guaranteed. Whatever inconvenience maintaining top-notch password habits may cause, it is nothing compared to the nightmare of having your personal information stolen and used against you as blackmail. It is time to get aggressive with your password protection. Be a tiger, not a pussycat.
2. Find a good password manager
Bite the bullet and use an application to make password management user-friendly and efficient. These applications help you create strong passwords and autofill them for you on the sites where you need them. Shop around and find the one you trust that will be most effective for you.
3. Stop reusing the same password or personal information passwords
Two-thirds of the country is sloppy about password usage, and hackers have figured that out. This becomes part of their strategy to unravel your complete online identity. Be proactive and use challenging passwords that you can file into your password manager. The goal of a password is not to be easy for you to remember, but to protect you from people who can figure it out!
4. Embrace multi-factor authentication systems
Multi-factor authentication systems create an extra layer of protection by requiring verification above and beyond the standard username and password. This protection is not meant to hassle you, they are your friend! Often you get sent a one-time password or unique code via email or SMS. While not offered on every site, embrace these systems on websites that can enable them.
5. Beware the manipulators: Don’t give info, Don’t click, Don’t download
Scammers are looking for you and will find various ways to entice you to open a link, download a file, or give them information. Through vishing (voice over the phone), phishing, and impersonations, hackers will tell you an account is in danger to entice or threaten you to enter your login and password. These manipulations look like they are coming from a legitimate company when you get an email, call, or text asking you to take action. This makes you vulnerable, so ask yourself if a legitimate company would engage in a message such as this. Check the actual email it is coming from, and if it is not a corporate one, it’s a fraud!
Implementing disaster recovery, setting up cloud implementation services, and fortifying your system’s virus protection. These are things we can do to be heroic when a hacker succeeds in getting through.
If your employees are vigilant and use this checklist you won’t need us as heroes, you’ll have your sitting right across from you!