Cyber crime is a multi-billion dollar industry that is unlikely to have lesser number of customers in the future. As global trade and use of IT expands, so does the threat of companies and government organization losing their data to this very real threat. But, despite what you think about hackers, they often use simple brute force methods to infiltrate your system’s security. So, to keep yourself safe from them, you don’t need to invest in thousand-dollar anti-virus and anti-malware software packages. What you need to do is to take a few simple, concrete steps and then see what kinds of danger you are looking at.
According to Kyle Lady, a research and development engineer at security firm Duo Security, we need three of these straightforward steps to be ahead of the attackers:
1. Use complex passwords at least 14 characters long that cannot be found in the English dictionary.
You should assign ones that are at least 14 characters long that cannot be found in the English dictionary. passwords like “123456” or “password” or “football” are likely to be brute-forced within two minutes and so will all of your data. But, the problem is that it is difficult to remember unique passwords for our dozens of accounts at different social media websites, email accounts, service accounts and payment accounts. For that purpose, you can use a password manager so you won’t have to remember all of them. Lastpass or 1Password are one of these useful services that can do just that. They can generate strong passwords for you, and you can then encrypt them and store them anywhere you like. You can also change them anytime you want, and the security is quite adequate to ward off any rookie hackers as well as making life miserable for expert ones. Now all you have to do is to think of a master password for this software and you are good to go.
2. Turn on two-factor authentication
So, if you aren’t comfortable with long passwords, the two-step authentication available at most email accounts can do the trick for you. It involves the use of your phone as a secondary account confirmation source. This can essentially stop any untoward advances towards your account as the hackers will have to simulate your smartphone’s identification module to gain access. So, if you enable the two-step identification process, you can stop a lot of disaster from ever happening.
3. Be wary of any kind of emails that can change the security of your accounts.
Lady says that about 91 percent of the cyber attacks begin with a “spear-phishing” email” that requires you to give up your password because your account has been compromised. Always be on the lookout for this kind of spam because it can essentially end your email security along with other accounts that might have the same password. Be mindful of the real URL of these companies. Never enter your password on facebooksecurity.com or similar URLs as they are all nothing but scams. This also holds true for spam calls as a bogus tech support shouldn’t be asking around for your password under ANY circumstances.
