In light of the recent cyber attacks on the NHS and The House Of Commons over the weekend, I thought this would be a good opportunity to write a quick blog about good security measures on your computer equipment and mobile devices.
There was a time when hackers would focus their efforts on accessing websites. That’s still very much the case, but alarmingly they’re now going for the bigger prize, control of your computer or companies network as many found out this week and last month.
Yesterday, another cyber attack named Petya affected many companies across Europe along with some huge companies in the USA. Our friends at Wordfence have written this excellent live blog on what happened yesterday which can be viewed by clicking here
At Audio Imaging Online, we’re big fans of Mark and his team at Wordfence and we use their products on all our client websites to give us the best opportunity to defeat cyber criminals.
So what can you do? Well if you own a Windows PC or Android device, make sure the software is up-to-date. Microsoft have already released a patch for this latest attack. If you’re running old versions of Microsoft software, consider if possible upgrading to the latest versions. Many hackers focus on older software that’s no longer supported and look for ways in.
Whilst Apple products weren’t affected this time, still make sure the software is up-to-date.
I say this a lot to clients but please make sure you use a good password on all your accounts such as email and log in’s. If you haven’t changed your password in a while, think about doing it. It’s good practice. My tip on passwords is to use an online password generator and then add something unique to you to that password. Also consider characters within your password such as _ ! $ % which make it more difficult for hackers to guess.
There’s no such thing as a 100% guarantee that hackers won’t breach your accounts, but the more difficult you make it for them, the more quickly they move on to other unsuspecting victim.
If you’re any doubt about cyber security on the devices you run, just ask, happy to help and advise.