Now that all commercial life occurs “online,” are you taking your password and data protection seriously? Could you have already left the door open to your systems and is your info already for sale? Well, fix it now.

Has the Equifax hacking frazzled your mind?  Are you worried about the almost daily stories about US consumer data being stolen and hacked?  Well, I am very worried and I urge you to take action too.

Today I had my cybersecurity client (BLOKWORX.COM) run a search for my domain name rutchik.com. And this is what he found below and it freaked me out.

He has a tool to search for his client’s and while I was glad that the info he found was very old and not a concern, he did find my email address.  Non-issue: Everyone’s email addresses are pretty much available but it is the password (often your simple to remember, way too easy for guessing software to guess) that are offered with your email address that must be addressed.

Have you had the dark web searched for your data?

What would you do if your companies’ data was available for sale?

Would you be surprised if I told you that anyone who uses the search software can quickly see that if your firm’s data is in there:

• most passwords are basic words like: Pet names plus two digits, Summer, Winter, Fall, Spring plus two digits, first names and other common English language names;
• few passwords are more than 7 characters long and thus easily guessed by software
• few use different passwords for different types of online accounts: from most secure banking to email users use the same, simple passwords
• Few users encrypt their computers or phones even though encryption is easily available, does not aeffect your daily use and would prevent loss of your data if your device were stolen

Only you will take your firm’s data seriously.  No government or private company will offer a service soon to secure our online lives.  If you do not NOW go thru your passwords, your security of data approach firm-wide or household-wide, then no one will.

If you’d like to discuss some of the approaches our clients use, please reach out.

You might want to put a call into www.BLOKWORX.com.  I am very proud of this client’s work and would recommend you have your network safeguarded.

Gregory