Software tools and techniques are all well and good, but educating yourself about risks and how to handle threats is what will really save you from cybercrime.
There’s a lot of scary news around about what to do to keep businesses safe from online attacks, but the most important advice is to take precautions.
It’s easier than you think to keep sensitive information safe – a little forethought and common sense will help keep your data secure.
As tempting as it is to put cybersecurity in the too-hard basket, it’s a bad idea. Statistically speaking, you’re going to be affected – if you haven’t already.
Cybersecurity software, policies and practices are improving all the time, but the numbers aren’t. The organisations that reported cybersecurity incidents in Australia rose 34 percent between 2012 and 2013. Targeted cyberattacks alone increased by 42 percent worldwide.
Something’s obviously not right, and we might be it.
Any security engineer will tell you humans are the weak link. For one thing, we don’t seem to learn our lessons about choosing good passwords and changing them often, with 95 percent of organisations saying general staff need to improve their IT practices.
Going phishing
We’re also increasingly falling victim to new styles of attack. In the beginning cybercriminals were bored hackers in the developing world defacing websites for bragging rights. Then more organised crooks realised they could hijack our financial details as we shopped online.
In response, regulatory bodies imposed robust standards, and the companies that deal with our credit card numbers or other private data have to be compliant with them to stay in business.
Now, cybercriminals are increasingly going after individual users. If the technology is getting too hard to get around, a common strategy is to trick us into simply letting the bad guys in.
The operative term in the 42 percent statistic above is ‘targeted’, comprising 51 percent of reported attacks rather than third party risks or internal IT vulnerabilities.
Also called phishing attacks, the email we’ve all had warning us to change our Paypal password is a classic example. The link in the email takes you to what appears to be the Paypal website, but it’s actually a fake that sends your login details straight to a cybercriminal.
The next step up is spear-phishing, an attack targeted at you personally. Sometimes the bad guys ‘work’ you as a mark before the swindle, pretending to be a friend on Facebook until they can convince you to download this game they just know you’re going to love… but which turns out to be malware that compromises personal details in your account.
In one recent example, over 25,000 Instagram users willingly disclosed their login details in exchange for vague promises of ‘likes’ for their pictures, sending them straight to an Eastern European organised crime gang.
Cybersecurity can be complicated. But caution and education rather than fear and avoidance are your best strategies. Here are some common sense places to start.