Here’s to a cyber secure 2023!!
Ladies and gentlemen, a new 365-day pilgrimage around the sun is well underway, so that means the tradition of new year’s resolution setting has passed and the process of resolution keeping is upon us. As we are all caring stewards of our minds and bodies, we are probably quietly ploughing away at life improving activities… improved physical and mental fitness and whatnot, and THIS. IS GREAT. SERIOUSLY! Those who know me know that I’m not just paying lip service. These pursuits enjoy year ‘round pride of place in my life so I’m all for others embracing them. Those who know me also know that I’m even more for cyber security. So, I wish to offer up for (late) consideration, resolutions of a slightly different but equally important nature. Those that have less to do with the amount of sugar or salt in our diets or the number of consecutive training sessions completed and more to do with improvements in our cyber fitness. I’m proposing improved personal cyber security, specifically improved online security as a modern-day resolution that we should all pursue to meet us where we are in our modern-day always online, fully digitized, social media-manic existence (I plead guilty, Your Honor!).
So, if you’ve ever had a curiosity about online security and where to begin improving yours, you would know that it, like love, is a many-splendored thing and by many-splendored what I really mean is that the discipline is as deep as it is wide and can leave you in a tailspin wondering where to begin but begin you must. The reality is that we trust online platforms with our sensitive data (the cost we pay to frolic online) and whether by breach or negligence, or by way of some other sin, our sensitive data have been hacked, leaked, stolen, poked, prodded, examined, and exploited more times than we would care to know, entirely unbeknownst to us (yes, your data included). So far, billions of users have been affected by data breaches and there are near weekly reports of new breaches. OK, so if you’re still reading, the long and short is that this type of thing happens a lot. But how does this actually affect you? Oh, it doesn’t really, except if your data have been breached (and this is likely the case) you are at risk of having your high-value online accounts such as email, bank and social media accounts hacked or accessed by someone other than yourself. If you’re fine with this likely outcome and you wish to do nothing and let it happen, then you may carry on smartly with your day. If this does bother you, even a little, which I hope it does, lets dig into next steps, which are minor but pay huge dividends security wise.
First of all figure out if you have been breached. To do this there’s a nifty site that allows Internet users to check whether passwords for their online accounts and email addresses have been leaked to the public. Browse to www.haveibeenpwned.com, enter your email address and search. For those who may be concerned that I’m going against my earlier stated ambitions of pursuing online security for all by encouraging my readers to enter their email addresses into random websites, thanks for wearing your risk hats, but don’t worry, the risk is low. Here’s why: (1) You’re only submitting your email address which is already a publicly known artefact to a website that is largely regarded as legit. (2) Everyday internet users, some governments and global organizations alike have been safely using the platform to determine if they’ve fallen victim to a data breach, (3) and furthermore, the creator of the platform, Troy Hunt is a well-known and very trusted name within the cybersecurity circle. He would lose status if his website did dirty things with user information.
So if you’re still under the spell of my positive peer pressure, you’ve already launched your haveibeenpwned query, gotten your results back and by now you may be making your way down the roller-coaster ride that is the full spectrum of human emotions that took off with you barely seated and strapped in and you’re now white-knuckled and teary-eyed, as you read all the ways in which you’ve been breached.
So… what now?
While it is important to know if you’ve fallen victim to a cyber breach, it is significantly more important to act on it. Here’s what to do:
In conclusion, personal cyber security, particularly online security, should be a new year’s resolution for everyone in 2023. With billions of users affected by data breaches, it is crucial to take steps to improve our cyber fitness. Checking if we have been breached and upgrading our password hygiene by creating unique and complex passwords, and enabling multi-factor authentication on all online accounts are some of the basic steps that we can take. By doing this, we are protecting ourselves from potential data breaches and cyber attacks. So, let's make this year a cyber secure one and not get breached.
