By Jan Thornborough – a cyber security specialist based in Kāpiti
It’s our go-to protection when the autumn leaves fall and the temperature drops. Winter is coming, and we need additional layers of protection to stay safe and warm.
It’s the same for your computer network. Cybercriminals don’t care what the weather is doing. If you only have a light layer of protection, they will breeze in and steal whatever they can get their hands on.
The solution is the same one we use to protect ourselves from the cold. We need to layer up those defences.
- If you haven’t changed your password since the day you were born, it’s time to do so now. Think your password won’t get hacked? Check out this website; Hive has calculated precisely how long it takes to hack a password. Are Your Passwords in the Green? (hivesystems.io). Think of passwords like toothbrushes, don’t share them, and change them regularly.
- Set up multifactor authentication, so anyone stealing your credentials also has to have a second ‘factor’ to use them. Multifactor means that in addition to putting in your password, you have to do something else, e.g., answer a security question, type in a code sent to your phone, or use your fingerprint to validate that it is you signing in. Microsoft, Google, and Amazon offer free authentication apps from their online stores. Ask a tech-savvy friend if you don’t know how to download them.
If you do these two things, you have put an additional layer of protection between you and the criminals trying to steal your identity. Then you will have that warm and fuzzy feeling, knowing you’ve just made it a little harder for cybercriminals to attack. Stay warm, folks, and layer up!
For more see: www.intelligensia.co.nz
