24By7Security celebrates October as National Cybersecurity Awareness month

Recognizing that keeping cyber space secure is a matter of national security, and that Cybersecurity must remain a top priority, President Obama has proclaimed October as National Cybersecurity Awareness month.     This is part of the process to keep increasing Cybersecurity awareness among the public because cyber attacks impact all of us directly or indirectly.     Hackers work 24x7 to steal our data and any cyber attack can undermine our privacy and security significantly.     Identity theft can obstruct our goals of financial freedom.     Maintaining strong cyber hygiene is a best practice that must be spread to our entire population.

In the interest of increasing cyber security awareness in this important month, 24By7Security has sponsored and presented at Nova Southeastern University’s Cybersecurity Day on October 20, 2016. We discussed “Cyber security issues affecting teens” with selected high school students who had been invited to the university for this annual event.       Throughout the month of October, we have been blogging on key cyber security and cyber hygiene topics and also curating several posts related to security.

Investment in cyber security protection efforts has been steadily increasing over the years to combat the continued and persistent attack attempts by hackers. Most companies realize that its not “if” you have a breach, but “when”.     Therefore, the goal of protecting themselves from a breach and taking all steps to be able to recover quickly from a potential breach, has become a major part of every company’s roadmap and overall technology plan.

Some key tips for the general public are:

• Maintain strong passwords.
• Do not share passwords.   Do not repeat passwords across applications.
• Be careful when using public Wi-fi and use a Virtual Private Network (VPN).
• Use multi factor authentication whenever possible.
• Update your devices with security patches as soon as they are released.
• Install anti-virus on all your computers.
• Take advantage of privacy settings on social media accounts.
• Never share or post private information on social media.
• Verify that every email is not a phishing attack by checking the link and source of the link.
• Configure security settings properly on all devices. Never leave devices without password protection.
• Do not connect to unknown people on social media.
• Take regular backups of your data.
• Get credit protection from a known agency.

While there are no guarantees, following these best practices for cyber hygiene is likely to help protect you and help you recover quickly in case you are a victim of a cyber attack.

By Sanjay Deo.