Ignorance Is Bliss with Computer Security
If you follow the news you know that this week was another really bad week for the IT sector. The NYSE stopped trading for 3 plus hours, United needed to ground all of the their airlines and apparently the news of the NYSE stoppage crashed the wsj.com because they could not handle the traffic. That was just in a few hours. (Link 1 Link2)
Now the US government wants you to believe that this was all coincidence and two high profile institutions where having system meltdowns at the same time. Now honestly that maybe the truth but the fact is that we will never know what really happened. Maybe it was that leap second issue last week that was still lingering. This is coming from the same government that had no idea that they had been hacked for over a year before noticing and they expect you to believe them. The ramifications of the government hack are just staggering given the amount of data that the have on people.
That brings me to a few events I witnessed this week with my own eyes. Yet another business got infected with CryptoWall which seems to be on the uptick again, and they have no functioning backup. It looks like they may be forced to pay the ransom. Second was a doctors office, and I was floored at the state of the local network. Not to mention that this office does payroll in-house and had no idea that Massachusetts has a Personal Information Law (MA 201 CRM 17) and is a HIPAA time bomb.
Now I would say 80% of the time nothing happens to you, but ignorance on computer security is not an excuse these days when your are doing business with other people. There are some easy steps that you can do both at work and home to protect yourself and your business. Have a disaster recovery plan and test it regularly. This includes a backup or storing your files in the cloud with a reputable vendor. Don't use the same password or use variants of them for all of your accounts. Never give your password to someone else and when possible use two-factor security or Multi-factor_authentication. Make sure that you have antivirus on computers, event the worst anti-virus program is better than none, and if you Comcast they give it to you for free to residential customers. Make sure your computers have the latest security updates applied, including Java, Adobe Flash and Adobe Reader (DC) if you use them.
Better yet if you do not understand or have the time to figure things out have an IT professional look at it. If nothing happens to you, you can be grateful, but don't be the person looking at a disaster when computers are our communication life line, record storage and how many of us make a living.
Now the US government wants you to believe that this was all coincidence and two high profile institutions where having system meltdowns at the same time. Now honestly that maybe the truth but the fact is that we will never know what really happened. Maybe it was that leap second issue last week that was still lingering. This is coming from the same government that had no idea that they had been hacked for over a year before noticing and they expect you to believe them. The ramifications of the government hack are just staggering given the amount of data that the have on people.
Now I would say 80% of the time nothing happens to you, but ignorance on computer security is not an excuse these days when your are doing business with other people. There are some easy steps that you can do both at work and home to protect yourself and your business. Have a disaster recovery plan and test it regularly. This includes a backup or storing your files in the cloud with a reputable vendor. Don't use the same password or use variants of them for all of your accounts. Never give your password to someone else and when possible use two-factor security or Multi-factor_authentication. Make sure that you have antivirus on computers, event the worst anti-virus program is better than none, and if you Comcast they give it to you for free to residential customers. Make sure your computers have the latest security updates applied, including Java, Adobe Flash and Adobe Reader (DC) if you use them.
Better yet if you do not understand or have the time to figure things out have an IT professional look at it. If nothing happens to you, you can be grateful, but don't be the person looking at a disaster when computers are our communication life line, record storage and how many of us make a living.