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Security
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May 13, 2019If you follow social media and social media antics then you know how invasive each of these media platforms is. But recently, this intrusion of privacy reached a new low when Facebook was found asking new users for their password to their email accounts. When the users clicked upon an email verification link, some new Facebook users were asked for their private email password – one of the first “DON’T’s” covered in cybersecurity. Why do we need to safeguard our privacy? Surveillance is now the daily reality of our lives. Privacy is in danger because organizations and governments across the world no longer think of it as an intrinsic right. Right from your web browser to mobile devices, and IoT products – almost every digital touchpoint has the potential to obliterate your privacy and security. And as recent news has shown, you cannot trust vendors, applications and social media sites to safeguard your data. Having “nothing to hide” is no longer a good enough reason. Everyone must do whatever they can to protect their personal data and privacy. You deserve to be safe and secure online. Here are some steps you can take to be protected and safe online: Data Management is the core of privacy While data may be a vague concept and may mean different things to different people, here is a good start to break down different sets of data to examine how each aspect is relevant to your security. PERSONALLY, IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION Personally, Identifiable Information is also known as PII and includes things physical home address, email id, birthdate, phone numbers, marital status, Social Security numbers or National Insurance numbers. This can also include information relating to your medical status, family members, employment and education. This type of data, when lost in various kinds of breaches...
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There many reasons why you might want to know more about a specific address. Maybe you want to know who lives there or find out more about someone who may have lived there in the past. Perhaps it’s for sale and you want more information about the property than was given to you by the real estate listing you found. An online directory can tell you just about everything you could ever want to know, up to and including the following. 1. Information About the Residents Whether you’re looking for the skinny on a new neighbor who just moved in or need to know who might have owned your home before you did, a reverse address lookup can definitely help. A few keystrokes are all it takes to see who’s currently connected to that address, as well as who might have been associated with it in the past. You can then perform additional searches on each of those individuals if you still have questions. 2. Current Telephone Numbers If you just need to know how to get in touch with the people at a given address, you can do a phone lookup by address. You’ll instantly be presented with any current telephone numbers associated with that property. You can also do additional people searches on the individuals you’d like to reach to potentially uncover personal phone numbers or other avenues by which you could get in touch. 3. Real Estate Information Sometimes you need additional information on a specific address because you’re thinking of moving there or purchasing that property. A reverse address lookup makes it easy to find out just about anything you might need to know. For instance, most searches will yield details on the property’s legal description, the current estimated value of the property, and any past sales records associated with the address....
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April 17, 2019As long as people have been going online to explore the internet, there have been bad folks out there looking to ruin that experience. We have all, at some time or another, probably been hit with some sort of virus. Using antivirus software to combat that issue is now a common practice, with the vast majority of new computers coming with some sort of antivirus suite already installed. Things are a little more different nowadays, though, as an antivirus may not be able to protect you from prying eyes intent on seeing what you are up to online. It’s not just hackers and identity thieves that we need to be concerned about in that regard, as major corporations and the government also want to know what you are up to from the moment you open your browser. It can all start to feel a little bit invasive, but the good news is that there is a way to keep those prying eyes out of your business. Installing a virtual private network (VPN) on your computer immediately adds a military grade level of privacy to your browsing experience but how does it work? A VPN works inside of a larger network and encrypts all your date while also concealing your identity. In many cases, you can actually choose a location to display while you surf. You may well be sitting in your office in Atlanta, but make it seem as though you are actually somewhere in the heart of England. As well as being confusing to those looking to track your every move, it also makes it possible for you to access websites and entertainment that are only available to people in a certain part of the world. Want to binge-watch those British TV shows online? Simply set your VPN to...
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April 1, 2019You might think that a hacker would not be bothered with your website, after all, there is nothing of real value on a small business website, surely? Wrong! There are a number of reasons why a hacker might target a small business website, or even a personal one. Searching for Vulnerability Hackers send out special malicious files that scan the web looking for vulnerable computers and websites, and often they find a way in via a webpage plug in. Your website might not be a specific target, but it could be used to gain access to other data that is stored on your computer. If you want to be sure that your website is safe from hackers, there are penetration testing and ethical hacking companies in Sydney who will test your site for security and then make recommendations based upon the results of the testing. Selling Information Data is worth money, and there are unscrupulous hackers who steal data that can be used by marketing companies, which might involve infecting a computer and tracking what websites the user visits. A worst-case scenario would be if a hacker stole a company’s financial data (customer’s credit card details) and in the wrong hands, this data can be used to buy goods online, or even to empty bank accounts. There are also some further reading on why a hacker might be interested in your website, which you should definitely check. Digital Vandalism There are hackers who attack websites purely because they can, and in such a case, they might wish to simply destroy your data, for no other reason than they can. This might involve hacking into the admin account and then deleting all the data posted on a website, and if you haven’t backed up the website, then you have lost everything....
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March 25, 2019In this age of big data, we have to deal with many downsides. Personal identifiable information, financial data and industrial data has become the target of network hackers. With hackers becoming ever smart and always staying a step ahead of network administrators and managers, most affected organizations could only react a few years ago. However, today, there is a way to stay ahead of the hackers and possibly beat them at their own game. This is the ethical hacking way. What is ethical hacking? In layman’s language ethical hacking is doing to your network what a hacker would do. However, you hack your organization’s network with the objective of finding anomalies so that they can be rectified, before the “real” hacker comes. Ethical hacking is also referred to as penetrative testing. This is the main way that organizations can use to stay ahead of hacker by finding and sealing loopholes that such cyber criminals can find and exploit. An ethical hacker uses the same resources, techniques and tools that a criminal hacker would use. Whatever vulnerabilities an ethical hacker finds in the network should be reported to the management. Who is an ethical hacker? This is a person with great technical skills and network knowledge to identify loopholes in a network, penetrate it and attempt to violate it. In every way, this is a person with extreme hacking skills. He is hired for these skills to help companies cover their backside, so to speak, against loss or illegal manipulation of their data. This person can also be referred to as a white hat hacker, while a criminal hacker is called a black hat hacker. If you wish to be an ethical hacker, having one of these best laptops for Linux can be a perfect tool for you to start as...
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Owning a website is no surprise today. Almost everyone who supplies a service or sells a product owns a website today. Because having a portfolio always helps to drive more business in this age of digitization. Moreover, web hosting companies are increasingly encouraging us to start our own websites. They are offering such cheap starting packages. But, maintaining a website is not that easy as it is starting. We have to check a lot of factors clinging around it. The design, customer experience, security, traffic, conversion, contents, and speed. Among all these major factors security is the most prominent area that we have to heed on. It is not because all other factors all less important. It is because a single security threat can ruin all our efforts and all our dreams into dust. When talking about website security, an SSL certificate is the foremost option coms upon everyone’s heart. Hence, in his blog, let’s check how an SSL certificate turns our website more secure with HTTPS. What Is The Difference Between HTTP and HTTPS? For sharing the information across the network and between two systems was the function of HyperText Transfer Protocol. It was a successful invention to transfer all sort of informations. But later own the inventors found the data that has been transferred through HTTP is missing something important attribute, that is the ‘S’- security. Later they introduced the ‘S’ into it and made it HTTPS. They developed a protocol that both of the users agreed upon code to encrypt the data. The encryption process randomized the data and turned it into another coding language with strings and symbols. Also, it ensures that only at the user end the data get decoded to the understandable form. Here an SSL certificate is a document that the computers used...
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February 13, 2019Protecting yourself against Internet predators or cyber attackers is crucial every time you’re online. Hackers tend to collect information from infected websites you visit. Remember that even just a single visit to a malicious site can jeopardize your personal and sensitive information. That’s why you need to avoid all unsafe websites altogether. Not all websites are secure, so identifying the signs of an unsafe site takes a careful observation to avoid the spread of malware or receiving spam messages. Checking online resources, such as websafetyadvice.com, can help you safeguard your online data. Don’t allow someone to steal your information. Learn how a website protects its visitors. Here are the signs that you’re on an unsafe website: No SSL Certificate An SSL certificate protects your sensitive information, such as financial data or any personal information, while traveling from the website towards a dedicated server. You would know that a website has an SSL certificate because its URL starts with “https,” which means the site is encrypted. However, you can also find sites without the letter “s” on it, just “HTTP,” which means that the site is unprotected or doesn’t have an SSL certificate. Your data is easily accessible or can be exposed to cyber attackers without an SSL certificate. Here are some reminders about SSL: It’s not enough to only rely on the SSL certificate when it comes to cyber protection. The SSL certificate is a good thing to consider if you need to log in, make a payment, or enter your email address. If you need to access an ‘HTTP’ site, do it on incognito mode, which is another browsing option done privately. It’s usually used to avoid other people who are using the same computer to see some of your online activities, and it reduces the amount of information...
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February 9, 2019Apple MacOS has always been a very secure operating system at least when compared to its biggest competitor Windows. However times are changing and with the Mac now controlling about 10% of market share, the Mac OS has been getting a lot of attention from cyber crooks in recent years. Moreover, crooks are designing more sophisticated phishing scams and platform agnostic threats. As such, Mac users have never been at greater risk when taking their devices into the internet. Data can be lost in a variety of ways which makes the need to enhance your Mac’s security as important as ever. There is not only the risk of losing files when your computer crashes but there is the risk that you can get all kinds of viruses and malware when exchanging files with others or downloading from the Internet. The following are the five most important steps to take to increase your Mac’s security. Enable your Mac’s Security Features The Mac has some of the best security features any computer user could ever wish for. The only problem is that when you buy your machine, these features are usually not enabled by default. Enable the following features to harden your OS’s security: – Set up a System Password and Disable Automatic Login There’s nothing more annoying than having to enter your password every time you turn on the computer, but not having a password is like leaving your front door wide open. Thankfully you can enable system password and disable automatic login with one click of a password, which will make it harder for the hacker to get your data in case your Mac gets into the wrong hands. – Enable FileVault Encryption The hard drive on a Mac can be easily plugged into another computer using a SATA/IDE to...
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January 16, 2019Data integration means combining data from different places so that it’s easily accessible and usable by anyone in your business. Integrating data means that you know that the data you rely on to run your business successfully is accurate and up-to-date. That’s important, because your business deals in data constantly. Every time you interact with a customer or supplier, you gather data about people and products. You can use this data to improve your service, analyze progress and drive growth. The need to integrate data Even small businesses tend to gather and record data in more than one way, using more than one software package to record it. Typically, a business might use a CRM (or customer relationship management system) to record data related to sales and marketing, and an ERP (or enterprise resource planning system) to record data related to business processes such as inventory, accounting and ordering. Using more than one system means it can be difficult for staff to access data. Staff from one team will often need to look at data held by another team. For example, a member of the sales team, who usually deals only with the CRM, might want to have access to a customer’s financial details, held on the ERP. As a quick fix, businesses often resort to manually copying data between systems so that it’s available to all. The risk of this is obvious: people make mistakes. When data is manually copied, it’s inevitable that mistakes will be made and that data will be incomplete. It’s also impossible for data to be available in real time when it’s copied manually. Alternatively, team members might go through a time-consuming process of asking those on another team for help. This is similarly risky — information might be incomplete and unreliable. How data integration...