On Wednesday we looked at several of the important takeaways from this year’s Cyber Security Summit. Here are a few more.
- Small businesses need to stop using public email services such as Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail for their business email. User credentials for 500,000 Yahoo email accounts have been stolen, and it could happen to the others. If you have a domain name you are using for a web site, then you should have professional business-class email on that domain name.
- Personally identifying information for customers, clients and employees, and company intellectual property need to be encrypted.
- Websites and attached databases of information need to be hardened and secured from attacks, and the database should be encrypted.
- Websites should be using SSL encryption for secure sessions and communications.
- As small businesses attach web-enabled devices such as thermostats, TVs, video cameras, Wi-Fi routers and access points, etc, this increases the attack surface.
- The vast majority of attacks start as a phishing email. Email attacks are becoming more targeted to owners and senior managers.
- Home offices are being targeted as a weak link in the security operations of a business.
Some of these issues I’ve written about previously, but there are some new issues in the list above. If there wasn’t enough stuff keeping you awake at night already, this list will certainly add to the load. But improving your cybersecurity operations is not impossible, and with the right assistance you should be able to make the necessary improvements.
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About the Author:
I am a cybersecurity and IT instructor, cybersecurity analyst, pen-tester, trainer, and speaker. I am an owner of the WyzCo Group Inc. In addition to consulting on security products and services, I also conduct security audits, compliance audits, vulnerability assessments and penetration tests. I also teach Cybersecurity Awareness Training classes. I work as an information technology and cybersecurity instructor for several training and certification organizations. I have worked in corporate, military, government, and workforce development training environments I am a frequent speaker at professional conferences such as the Minnesota Bloggers Conference, Secure360 Security Conference in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, the (ISC)2 World Congress 2016, and the ISSA International Conference 2017, and many local community organizations, including Chambers of Commerce, SCORE, and several school districts. I have been blogging on cybersecurity since 2006 at http://wyzguyscybersecurity.com