Once again, we find ourselves in October, and for us, it's also known as National Cybersecurity Awareness Month! (NCSAM) It's a time when we all work together to help increase public awareness of cybersecurity and its importance to everyone. This year's theme is 'See Yourself in Cyber,' which is about recognizing the role that you play in cybersecurity for yourself and the people around you. If you are not practicing good cybersecurity habits, not only are you endangering yourself, but you could also be endangering many others. A hacker can use a breach in your cybersecurity to break into whatever network you are connected to, which gives them an opening (called a foothold) to attack anyone else on that network. This problem becomes even worse when it is a business network that is storing the private data of any number of customers who trusted that business to keep their data safe or even the business's info itself that could ruin the company if all their data gets stolen. We always say your network is only as strong as the weakest link.
Over the course of this month, we will be discussing the different steps you absolutely should be taking to keep yourself cyber secure and, by extension, improve the cybersecurity of everyone. Starting with one of the most efficient ways to evade a security breach, Multi-Factor Authentication!
This topic is one of the most valuable tools for keeping your accounts safe, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). We have previously discussed the benefits of MFA in a blog post here, and that article is still just as valid as it was when we first published it, if not more so. To briefly summarize that post, MFA is when multiple steps are required to log in to an account beyond just inputting a username and password. Traditionally this is a second password that is randomly generated by or sent to a device only you have access to, but any number of things can be MFA, such as fingerprint scanners, security questions, location verification, so long as it makes it more difficult for someone who is not you to access your account.
In 2019, statistics showed that MFA protection on accounts helps defend against 99.9% of cyber attacks designed to compromise accounts. And that stat remains the same three years later, in 2022. Additionally, according to Microsoft statistics, 99.9% of accounts that ended up compromised did not use MFA. When you have MFA enabled, even if your password becomes compromised, that does not mean your account is since there is another layer of security that the hacker must overcome. There is a variety of different MFA software available for free, and you need to enable MFA on every one of your accounts that will let you.
We highly recommend you get our Cybersecurity Essentials for Business Owners to understand the state of cybersecurity in today's climate.
You can also check out the cybersecurity self-assessment, where you can see if your network is up to par! We help you find the holes in your company's network, and we'll even help you audit your network if you want to go through the assessment with us!
Your Secure-IT Cyber Smart Assessment
Remember: Do Your Part. #BeCyberSmart.