It’s fun to be scared by frightening costumes and pranks at Halloween. Heck, who DOESN’T like a good DIY zombie get-up? But one thing that’s definitely NOT fun is being hit by a real-life cybercriminal who is trying to hack into your PC or steal your identity.
After all, ghosts, witches, and haunted houses are one thing. Having your PC turned into a zombie, your email hacked by a cybercriminal, or all the data on your computer held ransom by a cyber con artist – well that’s something altogether different.
National Cyber Security Awareness Month (in the US) and European Cyber Security Month (in Europe) are coming to an end, which makes this the perfect time to double and triple check your cyber safety. Do you approach your use of the internet with a grain salt or are you reckless? Are you doing all you can to protect yourself from online trouble or are you just a hack waiting to happen?
Read the statements below and make 100% sure that they don’t describe your online behavior. If just ONE of them rings familiar, then it’s time to change your online behavior ASAP. Your personal privacy and security depends on it.
Ahh…. IoT.
If those three little letters don’t strike at least a bit of fear in your heart already, then they probably will after you read this.
If you recall from Part I, the Internet of Things (IoT) affords people with lots of cool and exciting conveniences. But before you run off to buy a computer chip for your goldfish, it would be wise to remember that every device that’s connected to the internet can become a target to hackers. And as you may imagine, that’s not always a good thing. Here are some more reminders that more connectivity is not necessarily better. And after these examples, we’ll give you some tips on how to protect yourself.
We all have things that keep us up at night every now and then. For some people, it’s spiders. For others, it may be mothers-in-law. In any case, it’s that thing (or combination of things) that makes you really nervous.
Well, now you can add a few more items to your “fear” list; namely, your refrigerator, baby monitors, hospital pumps, airplanes, cars, and pretty much every other item that’s connected to the internet. These items are all part of the Internet of Things (known simply as IoT), and they could make you more vulnerable to hackers than you ever imagined.
Most people have important information on their computers. I mean, that is the nature of the beast after all. It could be tax returns, contact information, or personal photos. It might be your old university papers, your design portfolio, or chapters from the book you write in secret every night while your family thinks you are on Facebook.
Regardless of the nature of the data on your computer, one thing is clear: It matters to you. And that means you need to back it up. And the best of way of doing that is via the cloud. Read more…
