Cyber attacks are something that we must worry about. Hackers are constantly after your personal information and this can be harmful to your personal life with things like banking information, social security numbers, and passwords to accounts that have sensitive information like social media accounts, emails, among others.

These hackers can also be after information that can potentially be damaging to your business or career. If you or your business holds sensitive information regarding your clients/customers then their safety is also in your hands. If this isn’t alarming enough then here are a few statistics regarding cyber attacks in 2020: 

• About 5% of companies’ folders are properly protected
• 2019 was the worst year, ever, for security breach activity 
• Security breaches have increased by 11% since 2018 and 67% since 2014

Microsoft recently also conducted a study to analyze cyber attacks. What they found was that the attacks are getting more and more sophisticated. This means that they are harder to detect and easier to fall for. There are ways to look for phishing attacks that could be harmful to you, your clients, and network at large.

There is one sure fire way to make sure that you know who is accessing your accounts and when: Two-Factor authentication. This will allow you to give access in real time to anyone trying to log in to your accounts. Microsoft conducted another study saying that “Our data shows that enabling MFA would alone have prevented the vast majority of successful attacks,”. If two factor authentication was enabled, people would have been aware of the breach immediately. They could have even prevented it themselves.

Importance of Two-Factor Authentication

Taking these steps will ensure that your accounts are secure. Two factor authentication won’t keep hackers away forever. They will have a much more difficult time getting into your accounts and accessing your information. You will be alerted the moment someone is trying to access any of your accounts and you will be able to prevent access if it isn’t you. 

Two factor authentication is not the savior of cyber security, but it is one of the best ways to protect your accounts while allowing you to have easy access to all of your own information. 

Typically we use passwords that are easy to remember. This can be a generic word like “password”, a favorite sports team, or we use some variation of the same password for every account that we have. This can make life easy, right? It’s something you’ll never forget, don’t have to write it down, and who cares about getting into your accounts anyway?

Well, more people than you think. Cyber attacks are one of the top three risks we face every day and the chances of your information getting breached is 1 in every 4 attacks. These attacks happen at an estimated once every 39 seconds. Today, we are going to give you some tips on how to make sure you are not one of those statistics. 

Password Managers 

Using a password manager is something that can always ensure that you have a secure password. A password manager will help generate, store, and remember your passwords for you.This will assure that your accounts are extremely difficult to access if anyone but you is trying to log in. This may take some time to implement and we understand that. We recommend starting with high priority accounts like banking and professional accounts.

Password managers can cost nothing at all and for secure and trusted password managers, click here. Your devices may already come with password managers built in. For example, Apple users have access to iCloud Keychain which is a free password manager that comes preinstalled on your IOS devices. 

There are more secure password managers, but they require payment. We recommend this to those that want to enjoy some premium features (read this article for more). 

Use a Strong Master Password 

A master password is the one you will use to access your password manager. This is key to making sure your accounts are secure. One secure thing to do is use a passphrase. This is a phrase that’s easy to remember, but you abbreviate or use your own kind of “code” to memorize it. An example of this would be using the phrase “To be, or not to be, that is the question – William Shakespeare”. Instead of just using this as a password you could use “2BorN2B_tHATisThe?” (Do not use this specific one, as it is a common example). This will make your password easy to remember, but difficult to guess. 

2 Factor Authentication

This is a tool that is completely separate from your password manager. It is a great tool that will help with your account security. Two factor authentication will alert you when one of your accounts is being accessed. Once you are alerted, you will have to verify the access into the account. This can be a face identification or fingerprint on your phone or a text message with a code. Some password managers offer two factor authentication, but this can be essential to securing all of your accounts. 

All of these tips have been designed in order to help you make sure your accounts are secure and protected at all times. Use them to make sure that your information is always locked down and you are the only person that is able to access it.