Have you ever received a terrifying email or SMS claiming someone has hacked your computer, watched you through your webcam and / or has our sensitive files? If so, you are not alone as these types of scam emails are becoming more common and are designed to frighten you into paying up. This blog article takes a closer look at how this scam works and why you should not worry. Continue reading
I know I keep on going on about security and you keep getting prompted for another password change or to install another security update. These are frustrating and can lead to cybersecurity fatigue. You can’t stop securing your tech and doing updates, but what can you do to combat both your own and your employees annoyance with the process. Continue reading
News of a big name company suffering a data breach is all too common these days. But what about the customers of these companies? Have all their customers’ details been compromised? Continue reading
Even with the constant development of new and powerful security measures, there are still many businesses that fall victim to the wave of cybercrimes floating around the internet today. Continue reading
Up to 500 million travellers details may be compromised as hotel chain Marriott International have announced a security breach within their guest database. Researchers alerted the firm to a vulnerability that has granted hackers access to the hotel chain’s database systems since 2014. Continue reading
You’re not alone! Most people use the same password everywhere – home, work, Twitter, Facebook, email and even for banking. Considering how many passwords we use everyday and are expected to remember them, password exhaustion is a real thing. It is no wonder that when yet another prompt for a password appears, users enter very easily guessed combinations like ‘abcd’ or ‘password’.
Trouble is, even if your password conforms to strict password rules, hackers are taking regular strolls around the internet and collecting logins and passwords, from either leaked details or sites with security flaws.
Then, they will try their luck with that login/password combination on other sites. They know more than half the users only have only one password and email combination, so the chance of gaining access into another one of your accounts is quite high.
As the same password is used elsewhere, one site breach follows another and another until hackers have nothing more to gain. The only way to break this chain reaction is to use a different password for each site.
Have a system or template for creating your own unique passwords, that you’ll be able to remember, but is not obvious to hackers. For example:
<character><word><something about the site><numbers><character>
Becomes:
!K1ttyFB75!
At first it might seem complicated, but the above is really just based around the words ‘kitty’ (with an upper case K and a number 1 for the i) and ‘FB’ for Facebook. For other sites change the FB to something else.
You can check to see if any of your accounts have been compromised by entering your email into a site like:
If it alerts a breach, you will need to change your passwords immediately – all of them. Use the example system above to create a new set. If you’re struggling to remember your set of passwords, consider using a secure password tracker such as LastPass. (http://www.lastpass.com) or Keepass (https://keepass.info)
If you assistance changing your passwords or setting up a secure password system, let us know on (08) 8326 4364 and we will be more than happy to help you out.