Cyber Threats - What Changed in 2016 and How Can You Fight Back?

URL Threats

Any IT professional who touches security in their role will tell you one of the biggest challenges they face with cyber threats is that the types and behavior of threats are always changing; always evolving into a new, scary, nameless monster waiting to attack. And, just when you’ve cleaned up one user’s PC, you are on to the next person who fell victim to the same or a new threat. Game on, right?!

Reports of threats from anti-virus vendors in 2016 suggest that the types of threats and their lifecycles are shifting as skill sets and technologies evolve. This week we’ll focus on URL (website) attacks.

One thing is for sure, the websites we should be wary of aren’t necessarily the ones we would think of first. For every one attack on financial websites, seven attacks on technology websites take place. Why? A stranger gaining access to your banking information is a pretty big deal, right? Absolutely. But there is a lot more information to collect about you that allows a hacker to take advantage of you in other ways – social media, personal email accounts, Amazon™ account, PayPal™ account etc. 

And now that we have so many passwords to remember, many of us are guilty of being lazy about creating complex and unique passwords. So, once a hacker gains access to just one of our accounts, unless we have unique passwords for every account we access, the hacker now potentially has access to much more. 

What can you do to keep the hackers at bay?  Believe it or not, the number one way to stay as secure as possible is to be sure that you run all system updates on your PC when they are recommended. When updates occur, patches are created to secure weak areas of a variety of applications that you use every day (including your anti-virus). If you are skipping by those updates, you are inviting a hacker into your world. 

The other suggestion is to always have complex and unique passwords for your accounts. Sounds like a nightmare to remember, right?  Well, there are solutions on the market like LastPass™ that will create complex passwords and store them for you. LastPass™ offers a free version of their software and also a Premium version which offers storage space, fingerprint authentication, a shared folder for multiple users sharing passwords, and priority tech support.

At Mnemonix, we offer services that will reduce these risks for you. From assisting with a password solution to managing your updates, we understand how to help you protect against these risks.

With the rate at which threats are evolving, there is only so much that technology can do to protect you. It is so important educate yourself on cyber threats and understand the best practices to keep yourself safe. Just one wrong click can shut you and/or your network down for the day. 

Stay safe out there!