A data breach is the intentional or unintentional release of secure, private or confidential information to an untrusted source. In the past few years, many large companies such as Target, Home Depot and Anthem Healthcare have been the victims of data breaches, affecting millions of consumers and patients nationwide. The information stolen has included personal information, such as Social Security numbers, credit card information and passwords.
As a business owner, you need to protect yourself, your business and your customers from cyber attacks or data breaches. How do you keep everyone’s information safe? Here are five ways you can guard your company’s online information against data breaches.
- Use unique passwords for every site. When a breach is detected, the first thing most sites do is reset passwords. If you haven't used that password anywhere else, that prevents some of the damage right there. Even a slight change to the password can make it more difficult for an attacker to figure out.
- Use long passwords. Longer passwords take longer to crack; the longer it takes to crack your password, the less interested an attacker becomes, as there are easier credentials they can crack. You can double every password's length by simply typing it twice.
- Turn on two-factor authentication. Two-factor authentication adds a second level of security to an account. Even if hackers get your password, they have to go to the extra trouble of cracking the other factor, which is more difficult. “Remember, it's all about putting in speed bumps,” said Dennis Rufolo, Ewing’s IT Services Manager.
- Sign up for an alert service like Have I Been Pwned? They'll notify you if your email is found in a breach and what information was compromised. This way you can quickly make the necessary changes.
- Only give out required information. Don’t give websites information to use their services if it’s not required. Companies will always ask for more, but if you never enter the information in the first place, no attacker can get it.
Nothing will make you completely breach-proof, but these tips put in enough barriers to keep your information a little safer. Share your favorite tips that protect you against a breach in the comments below.
