You may be tired of seeing blogs about IT security, but security threats are never tired! They are not stopping any time soon. Did you know 17% of businesses in the U.S. do not know how they were breached by a cyber security attack? It's because everyone is vulnerable.
It does not matter how small of a business you have, it does notmatter if you are a stay-at-home parent, it does not matter if you work in the government, for a nonprofit or anything in between, we are all targets for cyber criminals.
As an IT consultant, one of the most frequent questions I get asked is, “what can I do to stay safe?” The second question is, “How come my virus scan didn’t stop that from happening?” Let me tell you, both are loaded questions and you might not like my responses to either, but let's dive in!
“How come my virus scan didn’t stop that”
I hear this a lot from people when their email has been compromised. This is because 90% of the time you clicked on what is known in the IT world as a "spearfishing" email. This targets you in hopes you will open a document. Or it points you to “update” your password, but redirects you to the hackers website so that they can get your information.
This is not a virus, and your virus scan is not going to block it. I know, this is not something you want to hear. So, what can you do?
Your best defense is YOU!
Do not just click on anything you receive in an email. Be vigilant. If an email is telling you “your password is going to expire today,” 99.9% Percent of the time this is a phishing email! If you are worried about your email password, go to the website that hosts your email (Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc.) and update your password that way.
For more IT tips see my other blogs!
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