You’re pretty security conscious. You have password-protected all your devices and have chosen good passwords that are hard to crack. You’ve installed good antivirus software and you even run regular updates on the software. You know better than to open strange emails, click through to suspicious sites, and download dodgy programs.
You’re all set – there’s no way that a hacker could gain access to your system, right?
The Bad News
While you’ve made an excellent start at protecting your data, more is needed. Password-cracking software is easily available online, and phishing emails are becoming almost indistinguishable from the real thing.
Hackers may not even be interested in stealing your data – if they can get you to open ransomware, you’ll have to pay them to restore your access to your own computer.
The Really Bad News
Your data can be gone in seconds, and that’s assuming you’ve made a mistake. Maybe you’ve had security awareness training, and so you understand what it takes to protect your data. Can you say the same about everyone in your life?
Take the Facebook scandal that broke a while ago surrounding the Trump presidential campaign. What came out was scary. The marketing company built an app. It was one of those stupid question-type apps that are fun when you’re bored.
You know the type, you answer a few questions, they tell you what kind of plant you are, and then you post your results to Facebook. Harmless fun, right?
In this case, no. In order to use the app, you had to grant it permission to access your contact lists. The app then collected information from your contacts. They used this information to help them decide which way to approach marketing Trump as a presidential candidate.
Why the scandal? What it boiled down to was that the app was collecting data illegally. It not only used the data from the person actually answering the questions but also everyone else they were linked to on Facebook
So, even if you’re 100% clued up when it comes to security, your information could have been compromised. Makes you think about installing extra layers of security, doesn’t it? Check out the infographic below and see what other measures you can deploy to more completely protect your data.
