- Email: sales@digitalshield.com.au
- Level 16, 19 Smith Street Darwin NT 0800
Before you do anything, go to these two sites to check if you’ve been hacked:
Haveibeenpwned is run by Troy Hunt, A web security expert and a Microsoft Regional Director. It’s verified by the Australian Cyber Security Centre, a sub-branch of the Australian Signals Directorate. You can find the link to Have I been pwned in there as well.
You’ve probably been hacked and don’t even know it. According to the Australian Signals Directorate as of 23rd January 2019, there are 100 billion records comprising of passwords and usernames data dumped on the Dark web. That’s ten and half times the population of the world, worth of account information just sitting in the dark web waiting to be accessed. As we move into the future, the need for more accounts to manage different forms of finance, entertainment and social media increases. let’s admit it even though we know we should have a different password for each account or device, we know we don’t. Simply because we can’t remember that many passwords or can’t be bothered (we are only human). Luckily for us, there are password managers.
Password managers store multiple account credentials in a protected safe either in the cloud (the internet) or locally on your computer, both by the use of an app. Generally, there is a two-phase method to unlock the safe, with a master password and one other (Fingerprint if phone, text, email etc.) We do not encourage the use of a browser-based password manager(Ie Chrome extensions, or Firefox) as they do not provide the flexibility and ease that an app-based product can deliver. See below for a graphical representation of how a password manager works.
That’s basically what a password manager is and how it works. There’s not really too much to it.
The general perception most people have is “It won’t happen to me”. And look, you might be right, however, at what price do you value your personal information? & how would you feel if someone had access to all your contacts and pretended to be you?
If you are after some brands of password managers that are reliable and affordable we recommend:
Evan Williams, The co-founder of Twitter, was hacked after the hacking group Ourmine guessed his password. Once in, the group was tweeting on his behalf. Imagine being the co-founder of Twitter and having your twitter hacked.
Kylie Jenner, in 2016 the Instagram personality was the victim of a hack, whereby the hackers posted numerous extremely lewd comments to her 16 million follower fan base.
Celebgate, in 2014 A massive celebrity list including Rihanna, Kate Upton, Selena Gomez, Jennifer Lawrence and Dave Franco’s photos were leaked online. This was the result of a brute force attack against their iCloud accounts. A brute force attack essentially just runs billions of password attempts of known passwords which have been previously leaked against an account. And due to a vulnerability within the iPhone, there were unlimited attempts. In total, 300 million accounts were affected.
Did you know that in 2019 Google warned 1 billion Apple users they may have been attacked? If you didn’t you probably should. A number of websites which haven’t been disclosed were able to automatically hack your device if you accessed them if you had an iPhone. There were at least 14 security vulnerabilities found by a Google research team. This proves that even Apple products can be hacked, immediately dismissing a myth that Apple products are more secure.
The spyware was able to send your text messages, emails, photos and location data to a remote server. Google researchers believed this attack continued unnoticed for over 3 years, so it’s hard to evaluate the extent of the damage. Once discovering the flaw, google was able to release an emergency security patch, however, if you had information on your phone which could have been linked to security questions or stored an unprotected password then it may already be in the hands of a hacker.
The only way we are going to ensure we survive in the digital future is if we change the way we think about technology.
Get yourself a password manager and reduce your risk today.
If you’re a business owner that’s unsure of where to start in protecting your business, do a free cyber health check, download some free policy templates, and free awareness posters by clicking here
