October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month – The Department of Homeland Defense has been promoting it as a way to get people to be smarter while they’re online. Consider this: We use the Internet for almost everything, in work and in life, and the threats have never been greater. Lack of awareness, especially amongst small businesses, is frightening because there’s a lot of bad things that can happen if you don’t take precautions.
We see it time and time again, breaches and hacks that are publicized, and of course, for every one of those, there’s probably hundreds or thousands of small business breaches and hacks that don’t get publicized.
When it comes to the Internet, everyone’s a target – the tools used to hack huge corporations are the same tools used to hack small businesses. Since these tools are automated, they’re designed to exploit anything that they can get ahold of. Even if you’re a small business, you still have bank accounts and sensitive information they can hack or steal.
Many people are speculating about the recent hack on JP Morgan Chase – In fact, it’s commonly thought that the Russians were behind the hack; however, our ability to trace these attacks is improving. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just JP Morgan Chase. A lot of banks were hacked, but JP Morgan Chase was simply the largest hack – over 83 million customers’ information was exposed.
According to the ex NSA director, we need a new cyber security model; it’s long overdue and right now, cyber security is left up to the individual or business. Ultimately, that’s not working very well. He’s proposing US companies, especially small businesses, get together and create cyber security programs for their environments.
Interested in learning more about National Cyber Security Awareness Month? Looking for an IT support company to help you safeguard your systems and data? Give us a call at (831) 753-7677 or send us an email at [email protected]. Alvarez Technology Group is the preferred IT support company for businesses in Monterey, Salinas and Bay Area California.
