SIW Has Cyber Experts Weigh In on Security Breach, Hacks and Other Security Concerns
Hikvision: Six Steps to Reduce the Threat of Password Hack
SecurityInfoWatch.com has experts weigh in on security breach, hacks, and other security concerns in the article “Cybersecurity pros set the record straight on hacker myths.”
A few common misconceptions organizations have are that hackers are simply “kids in the basement” versus a large business, and that security breaches are publicized in the media when in fact many are not.
“Society generally thinks that we hear about most of the hacks that are going on because we hear about them every day but the reality is there are only a couple of things that are required by law to be disclosed–most of which just require that it involves PII, personally identifiable information, which leads to credit cards, banking information and that type of stuff. All of the other stuff–trade secrets, formulas and information or compromising operations–you are not required to go ahead and report that. Maybe as a publicly-traded company if it affects your earnings you may have to do some disclosure on your financial reports for the SEC, but aside from that a) most hacks aren’t discovered and b) most of them certainly aren’t reported,” said Terry Gold, principal analyst at D6 Research, in the article.
Ensuring that employees are implementing good cybersecurity practices on a daily basis is an important part of reducing threats of hack. Some business email compromises have involved hackers targeting finance departments and “will impersonate a high-ranking executive in the company” and use phishing in an attempt to get money from the organization, according to the article.
Being able to identify a phishing email is helpful. Hikvision posted this blog to help employees and partners identify phishing emails to reduce security concerns and the risk of security breach or hack.
Hikvision: Six Steps to Reduce the Threat of Password Hack
Hikvision also published tips for reducing security concerns in this Hikvision blog. Here are the six tips from Hikvision’s cybersecurity director on ways to improve passwords and reduce the threat of a hack:
- Create a long, strong password: Develop a strong password, which includes multiple character sets such as uppercase, lowercase, numbers and special characters. Make it long—eight characters or more.
- Change default passwords: It’s critically important to change default passwords on all devices, and set a complex password (see tip number one).
- Use a password management tool: As you create more complex passwords that different from site to site, you may find it difficult to remember them. A best practice is to use a “password management tool,” which can help you generate and retrieve complex passwords.
- Where possible, enable the lock-out feature: Enable the password lock-out feature after a certain number of invalid login attempts, and receive notifications of those attempts. This prevents brute-force password attacks.
- Where possible, enable multi-factor authentication (MFA): Enable MFA, especially where you have only a username and password protecting sensitive data. Many sites support MFA but not many people are aware that they have the option to enable MFA. The following site lists popular sites and shows how to enable MFA on those sites. https://twofactorauth.org/
- Assign unique, individual usernames: Ensure individual accountability by assigning everyone their own unique username and password, with no sharing of accounts allowed