From Orbitz to Target to Yahoo, data breaches are now happening daily jeopardizing your personal information.
According to Breach Level Index, who tracks breach statistics, more than 9 billion records have been lost or stolen since 2013.
That’s more than 5,000,000 every day, 3,500 every minute.
The question now is why?
Our expert, who’s with Abacode Cyber Security, says businesses are not taking the proper precautions to protect their data and their computer networks. Many companies don’t believe they are a target. But every business is a potential victim.
They say businesses need to invest in online security.
They can do that by conducting a security assessment. Have all employees take a cybersecurity awareness training program. Develop appropriate policies and procedures which help the entire organization to improve the company’s cybersecurity posture.
Software and hardware will not fix this problem. Having a layered multifaceted approach is needed.
Each state has laws about privacy and punishments for data breachers. The topic is similar to the seatbelt issue of the 1908s. Nobody wanted to wear one until a strict law was passed.
My expert says companies won’t adopt strong cyber security measures until there are strict laws requiring such or a lot of lawsuits that will send a strong message.
In the meantime, you as the consumer, can take it up on yourself to ask a company that may have some very personal information, what are they doing to protect you. They may not be ready for that question, but it’s time we start to ask.
So what can you do? Make sure you do the following...
- Use two-factor authentication
- Change password often
- Choose lengthy password with special characters
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