We all know what bank robbers and burglars do. Understanding their common tools and techniques helps us to design appropriate defence mechanisms. Cyber crime is no different. Recognising the different tricks of the trade empowers us to implement the cyber equivalent of locking the door or fitting an alarm.
How many of the following 8 common tactics employed by cyber criminals have you heard of?
Quite simply; your password is the key to your IT castle. The walls you carefully build around your business data are of little value if the front door lock is easily picked. The idea that passwords should be long and complex is one of IT industry’s sacred cows, and yet many users stubbornly stick to passwords such as 12345, Password1 or Jimmy1970; which often takes less time to crack than to type them. The question “So, what constitutes a good password?” is a common one.
As top managers of SMEs, we expect and demand access to all data within our company. While we may consider restrictions upon our staff reasonable and sensible, these surely don’t apply to us? Of course, we need them; finance, operations, sales and marketing are the very pillars of our company, and we need access to every document and every record in every area.
