Have you upgraded things around your home and office lately? Chances are you’ve jumped on the IoT bandwagon.
The Internet of Things is impacting all kinds of devices in every aspect of our lives. Installed a doorbell cam? Or a smart lock? A digital personal assistant? A new refrigerator? Or maybe just upgraded your phone? Yep, connectivity is everywhere.
There are lots of ways your data can be compromised.
In the news, you may see some stories about data being hacked, while in others they talk about a breach. They are often used interchangeably, but in reality, they are quite different.
Quite simply, a hack involves malicious behavior, where cybercriminals find a way to compromise IT and steal data or hold it hostage.
When was the last time you downloaded a security patch the moment it was released?
Hours? Days? Weeks?
How vulnerable did that weakness make you while you put off the update?
According to tCell’s 2018 Security Report for In-Production Web Applications, even if you make the update the moment it’s released to you, it still takes on average 38 days for an organization to patch vulnerabilities.
A recent data breach put 100 million Capital One credit card applications and account information at risk. That means people’s names, addresses, credit scores, credit limits, balances, and other pertinent information is now ripe for the taking, and may be used in criminal behavior in the future.
As we release more of our medical tasks to artificial intelligence, we’ll see technology handle things way beyond what humans can do. Artificial intelligence is designed to handle repetitive tasks that can easily be identified using algorithms. Like diagnosing illnesses.
What if disaster struck today?
What if a tornado picks up your building and takes it away? Or your best employee resigns and walked out the door? Or a major medical issue will keep you out of the office for the next few months? Or a hacker breaks in and takes away all of your data?
There are a lot of things that can derail your business.
Facebook and security: these two words rarely show up in the same sentence together without loss and frustration being there too.
Through Facebook, the concept of “privacy” has changed in meaning. If you put your information in, assume it’s ready and waiting for the taking.
Two years ago, over 145 million Americans had their personal information hacked thanks to the Equifax breach.
Has anything changed?
Not Much.
A recently released report from the US General Accountability Office found that four of the biggest government organizations - the US Postal Service, the Social Security Office, the Department of Veteran Affairs, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are still using “knowledge-based verification” authentication systems, even though they expose these agencies to widespread fraud.
Want to know which industry has the most potential for criminal activity? If you guessed healthcare, you’re correct.
A study by Ponemon showed that nearly 90 percent of healthcare organizations had a data breach in the last two years. Roughly half of those had more than 5 data breaches during that time period.
Patch Tuesday (recently changed to Update Tuesday) is an unofficial term referencing Microsoft’s release of security patches for its operating systems and software products. It’s occurred the second Tuesday of every month since late 2003.
Of course, Microsoft doesn’t own the market on security issues; every system, every piece of software, every program is at risk.