What are you doing to protect yourself?
Below you’ll find some recommended practices and habits for practicing better cyber security. Also there is a checklist to help make sure that your home and business networks are protected.
Tag: cyber hygiene
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Better password security
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Home Cyber Security
Do you work from home? Do you have a small business that relies on using the internet? Do you have employees that work from home?
The subject has come up recently on working from home and using your home network for work purposes.
Some Security experts have asked the question how do we keep employees who work home more secure?
The easiest answer is to educate employees on home security and the importance of maintaining good home security, performing good cyber hygiene. Easier said than done. How do you keep them interested enough to learn and continue to practice good habits? Make it interesting, change it up.
Another tool that can be used to introduce employees to the risk of not maintaining a good security practice is to introduce them to a program called Bwapp. Bwapp is a program designed to educate people on what the cyber criminals can do by teaching them what they actually do. Bwapp doesn’t care what your knowledge level is in cyber security. The program is designed to start at entry level and slowly progresses in difficulty. Bwapp starts at the basics, walking an individual through the program step by step.
WICTRA can help with this. What do we do? We help to provide education on cyber security. We have assembled various sizes of mobile ranges to provide training to groups of 2 people up to potentially 50 people at one given time. Bwapp is just one training aid that we offer. We have over fifty different challenges for people to try in our mobile range setup.
Once again, this only part of the solution. Another element that can be added in assisting people who work from home with their internet security is to provide them with an easy to follow checklist that gets them looking at all of the items within their home that connect to the internet, to see how secure they really are. Keep it simple, this is the easiest way to keep them interested and using it. If they don’t understand the terminology, how can they implement it? Speak with them, not at them.
Keep your employees engaged in what’s really happening in the world. There’s an overwhelming amount of news out there pertaining to cyber security, but which items would be helpful and important to the individual who works from home?
Below is a link to a checklist we’ve created. Feel free to download this and use it to start looking into the level of security within your home. This is a good tool start getting into a routine of monitoring your devices used in your home or small business.
Each year many fall for these scams. The bad guy predate on the old, the young, anyone who may not have strong knowledge of the IRS and how it operates.
Here are just a few of the more popular scams/setups.
Any email from the IRS. The IRS does not email you.
Any phone call from the IRS. The IRS does not call you.
You are getting a refund / what is your tax refund status
False unemployment claims
Your SSN has been cancelled/suspended
You owe back taxes . Pay now or else.
Help by providing relief for this disaster
Please verify your information
Your Tax Transcript
You are a victim of Identity Theft.
Please verify your information.
You have committed a crime. Pay the fine.
Please verify your banking information
Etc. Hundreds more.
The National Cyber Warfare Foundation (https://cwr.dev) sees many alerts and notifications every year.
The IRS provides specific guidance on this issue. Read their web site post: https://lnkd.in/dSRY-Z3 the article also provides links on who to report scams/scammer to. #ncwf
If your employees don’t know how #cyberattacks occur, how will they be able to spot them? Here’s a great article that helps break down what happens during an attack, along with some of the most common threats to be aware of
A guide to the different methods cybercriminals use to harm computers and steal data
Cyberattacks are performed by malicious actors with various intentions, though the tools and methods they use are often the same.
- A cyberattack is an assault on any computer or network, almost always launched from another computer or network.
- There are a lot of ways malicious actors can launch a cyberattack, including malware, zero-day exploits, and denial-of-service attacks.
- Here’s a brief overview of cyberattacks and what you need to know about their risk.
- Visit Insider’s Tech Reference library for more stories.
Search engines are one of the primary resources used to spy on you. I personally know that search engines have been spying on people since the beginning.
There is a clear privacy leader for search engines: DuckDuckGo (https://duckduckgo.com)
This is a great search engine and they are privacy focused. This protects you online and greatly improves your privacy/cybersecurity posture.
You should switch all of your web browsers to use DuckDuckGo as your search engine. Including:
- Your desktop
- Your mobile devices
Switching is easy and it is never too late. You will start benefiting immediately.
Do you own a single computer or a number computers and home automation devices? There are many levels to Cyber Security, but do you know how your Cyber Security stacks up? There are a number things you can do to protect yourself from Cyber theft and Cyber criminals. The Basics. Make sure that everything that you connect to the internet has been updated. From your Desktop / Laptop to your phone just about every device has an operating system that requires some form of updating. If you don’t update these, you’re basically inviting the criminal into your house.
The Basics. Make sure that everything that you connect to the internet has been updated. From your Desktop / Laptop to your phone just about every device has an operating system that requires some form of updating. If you don’t update these, you’re basically inviting the criminal into your house.
During the next couple of weeks, we’ll cover topics related to you and your level of Cyber Security.
If you have questions or a topic that you would like addressed feel free to send us an email and we’ll try to answer your question. If we can’t, we’ll try and direct you to a source that can better answer your question.
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Cybersecurity breaches have skyrocketed as the world continues its move to work and learn from home. Are you properly protected?
Categories
Home Router Security
Do you work from home and use your home internet to perform work?
How secure are you?
Today we’ll talk about the router.
Do you have a router? Do you know where it is? Have you dusted it off this year?
A router is a must have when it comes to working from home. A router can help to keep you secure when you’re on the internet both for home use or if you’re accessing work related documents or work computers.
If you’re shopping for a router what should you look for? There’s a lot of information out there and depending on the number of devices in your home can help to determine what you need in a router.
Do you have children that use the internet? Make sure that whatever you have or purchase for a router has a guest network capability. A guest network can help separate work and home functions that use the same router. If you want to keep your work more secure than make sure that this is happening in your house. By keeping leisure devices on a separate guest network, you ensure that your work devices are safer.
Do you have home automation, home security, Smart devices, Smart tv’s, Tablets, gaming systems or cell phones? Make sure that they all connect to the guest network. If a cyber criminal would compromise any of these items, they could potentially compromise your work computer if they’re on the same network.
Does your router have a firewall and is it enabled? A firewall adds an additional layer of security to your home network. Most home use routers have built in security capable of providing different services to help you secure your network. A good router will have the capability to block sites from accessing your network and your computers on that network. A good router will also have parental controls that will allow you to control what your children have access to.
If you already own a router, is it updated? Depending on the manufacturer, they will provide firmware updates for your router. Just because your router works doesn’t mean it’s secure. If you happen to own an off-name brand router and the company no longer supports that device, you should upgrade to a more up to date router to ensure that you’re as safe as you can be on the internet. Some routers will actually offer automatic updates, if this is available in your router, enable it.
Router password security: Whether you currently own or are planning to purchase a router, you should make sure that the administrator user i.d. and password are changed from the factory default. Some manufacturers aren’t really secure out of the box and use a default of admin for the user and admin for the password. This isn’t too tough for criminals to figure out and is usually their first attempt at breaking into your router. Do the same thing for the Wi-Fi settings on your router. If a criminal is within Wi-Fi range they can log in and take over your router and any device attached. Change them and use a password that isn’t easily cracked. Repeat the process one more time for the guest network. When you name your Wi-Fi network and guest network (SSID) don’t use anything that will identify you or where you live.
Connecting to your router. If at all possible, connect using a cable versus the Wi-Fi, by connecting this way you eliminate one avenue of your computer becoming a victim.
VPN: Do you need a VPN? A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a necessity if you’re working from home. Chances are that you’re connecting to work computers and work documents containing valuable information, sometimes personal data. By using a VPN you’ve just added an additional layer of security. There are manufacturers that offer VPN services directly through your router and can be setup accordingly.
Hours of activity: One of the easiest ways to minimize your internet security risk is to turn it off. If at all possible, turn your router off during hours of non-use. If your router isn’t on, it can’t be compromised. If you don’t have a need for it to be on, turn it off. If you go on vacation and your router isn’t needed turn it off.
Take inventory, most newer routers offer a way to log into your router, view and manage the devices connecting to your router. Some routers will actually allow you to give each device a name so you can easily identify the devices connecting to your router. If you don’t recognize it, remove it.
Get into a routine of managing your router. You should get into a regular habit of logging into your router and view your settings to ensure that you haven’t been compromised.
Other details of what you should look for in a router. These items aren’t necessarily security items, but might make the difference in what you need in a router. Check to see if either the router you own or are about to purchase has MU-MIMO (Multiple User Multiple Input – Multiple Output) If you have more than one device that connects to the internet through your router you should have this feature. Without Mu-MIMO it’s like have a traffic cop at the top of the on-ramp letting cars go onto the freeway one at a time, with Mu-MIMO you can have multiples accessing at the same time. Do you or your family members stream videos or play online games? If this is the case, you’ll want to look at Maximum download speed of the router. Movies and video games need a fast router the faster the speed the better performance. This will also enhance how well you access remote networks for work as well.
Price: How much should a good router cost? Depending on your needs the price can vary. Just using the scenario of having a couple of laptops and a Smart tv connecting to router, an average price router should cost between $100- $200. Yes, you can spend more, but do you need it? If you don’t do online gaming then probably not. There a lot of nice options on the market and shopping can be intimidating if you don’t know what you’re looking for.
Hopefully this article has got you thinking about your router and security needs. This article isn’t intended to be the only answer to your router questions. The objective of this article was to get you thinking, not put you to sleep. If you have questions feel free to contact us at [email protected].
Below is a link to our checklist