Cyber security has been at the forefront of concern since the Internet’s birthday. As technology grows, so do the cyber threats.
AT&T announced on Friday, July 12, 2024 that the company suffered a large hacking incident back in April, compromising about 109 million US customer accounts – and containing records of calls and texts from 2022. Authorities say that the call logs were copied from its workspace on a third-party cloud platform and caused a significant breach. The breach caused AT&T shares to drop nearly 1.2% in early trading. Investigators have not identified the suspects and the Federal Communications Commission is continuing to dig into this issue. AT&T has mitigated the point of access to the hackers and does not believe the data is publicly available.
What Can You Do To Protect Yourself Personally Online?
There are some basic steps that you can take from a consumer standpoint to make it harder for hackers to access your information.
- Use strong passwords. You want your password to be as hard to guess/crack as possible. Here are a few guidelines:
- At least eight characters long
- Includes a mix of letters, numbers, and special characters
- Don’t use a password that you use over and over on multiple websites
- Don’t include easily accessible personal details about you such as your last name or birthday
- Keep software up-to-date. Software companies are frequently patching their work with fixes to reduce vulnerabilities, along with improving performance.
- Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA), also known as two-factor authentication. This functionality requires multiple forms of verification to access an account, application, or network – such as a secondary email address, a phone number or Authenticator app.
- Don’t send sensitive information over email or text messages. This is just a simple NO – not a good idea!
- Educate yourself and others (This is SO important!)
What Can I Do To Protect My Company’s Cyber Security?
From a business standpoint, be sure that your staff is being vigilant when accessing information from your business computers.
- Provide regular cybersecurity training to employees
- Encourage your employees to properly report suspicious activity
- Remind staff to not click on links from unknown sources
- Implement access control so employees cannot reach specific websites on business computers
- Back up your data FREQUENTLY
Fortifi Cyber Security, can help your organization protect itself against cyber threats with our world-class, highly-affordable security services. Call us today at 888-500-9111 or sign up for a free vulnerability test. Need an overall IT provider? Our sibling company, Atlantic Technology Services, can take the worry out of IT management for your company with our managed IT services.
