Your Personal Cybersecurity: How Do You Protect Yourself?
Have you been pwned?
Do you even know what that even means?
If you don’t, you’re not alone. It’s a term commonly used in gaming when you defeat your opponent and want to taunt them. It’s also used when your online accounts and personal information have been hacked or compromised.
If you don’t know how that happens or how to prevent it, you’re not alone in that either.
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David Shipley’s 8 Tips to Protect Yourself
- Don’t reuse passwords.
- Keep your operating systems on your laptop, tablets, smartphone, home security cameras etc, updated. Make a regular monthly check for updates, especially on IoT machines.
- Do not do sensitive or personal banking, social media access or work access from any computer you allow teenagers to use. They are really apt to download software that will make it a high probability that the machine will become infected with Malware.
- Keep the shared family computer in a visible area in your home. Make sure younger children are supervised when on the web.
- Whether you have a Mac or PC, you need to have good antivirus and anti-malware software. There are some good free and paid options out there. Do some research.
- Backup. Keep a backup of your material on-site in your home and keep a reasonable backup of your material in a safe second location, not in your home. So many parts of our lives are tied up with our digital devices. The issue of ransomware can be catastrophic if you don’t have good backup hygiene. Having a backup drive attached to your device is not enough. Those can get attacked too.
- Be suspicious of everything. When receiving text messages and emails from social media sites, banks, Amazon, Canada Post, etc., take time and look at the email carefully. Check the links before you click on them to make sure they’re going where you think you’re going. This is still the number one way of compromising people.
- Register for HaveIBeenPwned.com to see if any of your accounts have already been compromised and to get notifications if they are in the future.
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“The good news is Maritimers are no worse off than the rest of the world. The bad news is the rest of the world generally doesn’t have a clue what’s going on and how bad things are. I say that without hyperbole,” says David Shipley, cybersecurity expert based in New Brunswick and CEO of Beauceron Security.
“The Internet is fundamentally not designed to be doing what we’re doing on it today and everything you see from McDonald’s job bank breaches to the Bangladesh Bank national heist, are the consequences of our failure to plan.”
Today, more and more of our devices are connected to the internet, our TV’s, home security systems, even our lights. Though this has enhanced our lives by making things more convenient, it also exposes us to threats many haven’t even thought of. Shipley says with a lot of new tech devices, people are taking their personal security for granted.
“We’re increasingly bringing devices into our homes and we’re not paying attention to the consequences of those devices. Case in point, the number of people who have Samsung smart TV’s and other smart devices that have voice activated command features,” he says. “And what a lot of people fail to realize is that in the terms of service, it clearly indicates that the microphone is always on and that if you don’t want to have any sensitive information potentially exposed or recorded by the device, don’t have sensitive conversations in front of your TV.”
Another common threat is people dragging their feet when it comes to updating their devices with the latest software when it becomes available. Though those constant notifications from Apple are annoying, Shipley says it’s crucial to stay on top of new updates.
“The last iOS update, 10.3, contained 19 patches for 19 remote code execution vulnerabilities. These are the most serious kinds of vulnerabilities where just browsing a website with an unpatched iPhone could cause someone to be able to take control and take your information. Most people gloss over those notes and get around to the update when they have time.”
Then there’s the issue of password security. With so many different social media and subscription services to log into, many people use the same or similar passwords for all of them. This isn’t a good idea since it opens you up to some scary security breaches.
“There are absolutely forums where people’s usernames and passwords are bought and sold,” Shipley says.
“The reality is your information can get popped in any number of organizations and they may or may not disclose that breach. You absolutely have to have a unique, random password for every online service you use, because you don’t know which one is going to be popped.”
Want to learn how crazy the internet account black market is? Check out this episode of the Reply All podcast below:
Luckily, the best way to protect yourself from this is using a password managing tool. Though there is a risk of those getting hacked too, Shipley still recommends using them.
“Using a password manager is better than not using a password manager,”
When it comes to helping people become smarter with their personal information online, education is key. Jamie Rees, a New Brunswick-based, award-winning professional who advises organizations worldwide on cybersecurity topics, says professionals in the cybersecurity industry have a role to play.
“I’ve been to Scout troops and classrooms and on Skype with teachers and students, all kinds of things. So I encourage all my colleagues in the industry to do similar things. Do the best with the time that they have, of course,” he says.
When it comes to cybersecurity education, Rees says the earlier, the better. The good news is New Brunswick is already taking some important steps to educate kids about protecting themselves online.
“I think things that we’re seeing in New Brunswick school system, like introducing these topics at younger ages and in more formal parts of the curriculum is wonderful,” Rees says. “We see things like CyberLaunch Academy here in Fredericton that’s getting kids interested early, and other learning code and STEM-type programs for kids across the province I think are wonderful.”
The dangers are terrifying, but Shipley says individuals are the best line of defence when it comes to protecting themselves.
“The cybercriminals don’t attack the technology defences. They’re not really primarily targeting the data, they’re targeting the flock. We need to turn people from the sheep into the sheepdogs who can spot the threats and respond to them,” he says. “What we have to realize when we’re talking about cybersecurity is cyber is both human and technology combined. When you’re dealing with very smart criminal actors who are backed by organized crime around the world, you have to up your game.”
The Internet is not like the world we’re used to. There’s no governing body. There’s no law enforcement. There’s not very much to protect you when you’re victimized by a security breach.
“This is one of the few time in human history where all the things we’ve gotten used to; police, national defence, structure, law and order, those things really don’t exist online,” Shipley says. “[We] are truly in the Wild West again. Never since that era have [we] ever had to take so much responsibility for [our] own personal safety and well-being.”