The news is flooded with daily data breaches however not many mention how to improve your cybersecurity and protect your organization.
Cybersecurity is one of the top factors that users and organizations need to take seriously.
If you review the top 12 data breaches of 2019, you will see the amount of data as well as the frightening numbers.
- Social Media Profiles Data Leak – 4 Billion Records
- Orvibo Leaked Database – 2 Billion Records
- TrueDialog Data Breach – More Than 1 Billion Records
- First American Data Breach – 885 Million Records
- io Data Breach – 808 Million Records
- “Collection #1” Data Breach – 773 Million Records
- Dream Market Breach – 620 Million Records
- Third-Party Facebook App Data Exposure – 540 Million Records
- Indian Citizens MongoDB Database – 275 Million Records
- Chinese Job Seekers MongoDB Data Breach – 202 Million Records
- Canva Data Breach – 139 Million Records
- ElasticSearch Server Breach – 108 Million Records
Security Magazine has put together a list of 2019’s Top 12 Data Breaches. In 2018, there were 500 million personal records stolen.
Here are few other data breaches reported throughout the year are:
- Capital One– 106 million records
- State Farm– Unknown
- Biometric Records– 27 million records
- Quest Diagnostics/AMA– 24 million records
- Ecuador Breach– 20 million records
- Hostinger– 14 million records
- DoorDash Breach– 5 million records
- Choice Hotels– 700,000 records
- European Hotel Group– 600,000 records
- Sprint Data Breach– Unknown
Curious if your accounts have been compromised? You can do a quick search on the Have I Been Pwned website. Here you will get a list of how many times your personally identifiable information (PII) has been found online and possibly compromised.
Staying safe and secure does not need to be expensive. It is actually very simple if you have a proper IT department or managed IT services provider.
How to Improve Your Cybersecurity Against Cybersecurity Attacks
It may sound complicated, but it should not be as there are industry best practices to help.
- Regular Software Updates – Software and operating system updates are required since the software is bugged, and the vulnerabilities may go public. This is the open door for hackers, cyber criminals, or employees to compromise your accounts to breach your data.
- Cyber Security Training for Employees – Hackers and cyber criminals are smart. They effectively attack specific targets within an organization using spear phishing. Training ensures that your employees are smart and protect you from cyber security threats. Your employees must understand all the possibilities and details of such ever changing attacks.
- Have a Password Policy – This is one of the most basic security policies to protect your organization. This can make your business less open to a data breach. All this can be automated by your IT department or managed IT services provider based on a schedule.
- Two-factor authentication – Another easy straightforward security policy is to enable two-factor authentication. This will offer additional security to all the logins you use, and it simply involves installing an application or registering a phone number, app, or email.
- Get rid of unused accounts – Hackers and cyber criminals can access your network you don’t keep you house neat and clean. You should eliminate any account currently not in use as well as create an off-board policy for employees.
- Restrict Permissions – With smartphones everywhere, they can easily comprise your network. By restricting access permissions to the fewest resources, functions, and areas necessary, the better the security.
If your organization is less proactive in cyber security defenses, been a long time since the last upgrade or victim to a recent cyber-attack, you should look at your network
Our complimentary network and security assessment can put your IT infrastructure and business to the test.
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