As we have discussed time and time again, COVID-19 has changed a great deal about our world. It has altered the way we work, the way we socialize, and it has put a massive new stressor on our shoulders. Not only do we fear our health, but COVID-19 has proven to be a threat to our business’ cybersecurity. The scams that have come out of the fear and uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 are elaborate. From using frightening subject lines to adopting faux letterhead, these scam artists are scrambling to use the climate of fear and disruption that has been caused by COVID-19 to their benefit.

With the fact that 158 accounts are hacked every second on average, businesses need to be versed in what to do when you receive the alert that your or employee's credentials have been compromised. It is an unfortunate reality that once exposed on the Dark Web, your information cannot ever be completely removed or hidden. You cannot file a complaint or contact a support line to demand your data be removed. Your company should immediately start taking appropriate steps and measures to correct or minimize the risks and potential damages associated with this exposed data. We must identify, understand, and learn from past mistakes or failures, and adopt a more proactive and preventative approach to your business' cybersecurity strategies moving forward.

Many business owners - and the IT professionals they rely on - focus on protecting their companies from external threats – the lone hacker out for a large ransom, the industry competitor pilfering secrets, or organized cyber-criminals with sophisticate phishing schemes, etc. But what about internal threats? Organizations sometimes fail to consider the true risks that insiders pose to their cybersecurity. Yet, internal risks are every bit as dangerous and damaging as the external ones, even if there is not malicious intent. The 2019 IBM Cost of Data Breach survey revealed that 24 percent of all data breaches in the past five years were the result of negligent employees or contractors.1 Another report, Insider Data Breach Survey, found that 60 percent of executives felt employees who made mistakes while rushing to complete tasks were the primary cause of internal breaches. Another 44 percent pointed to a lack of general awareness as the second most common reason, and 36 percent cited inadequate training for their organization’s security tools as a close third.2 To drive home the full harm of insider threats, we’ve compiled five actual case studies of internal actors who’ve wreaked financial and reputational damage when they got careless, or abused their knowledge and positions for personal gain.

Nist 2020 guidelines recommend that you have at least eight characters in your passwords. That is beneficial, but only if the characters in your passwords are effective. Over 80% of cybersecurity incidents are caused by bad passwords. Knowing the substantial criteria to create a valid password is essential to keeping a powerful front-line of defense in the face of cybercrimes. Today we are going to take a look at what are the "Dos" and "Don'ts" for strong passwords.

The Global pandemic which we are living has affected every aspect of our world. One area that many probably don't think about being affected is the Dark Web. The current state of the Dark Web has a significant impact on the security of our businesses. When considering the Dark Web and the threat it posed before COVID-19, the risk was high, but our world's uncertainty has pushed the Dark Web even darker. Before our Global Pandemic, there were more than 4.5 billion web pages. If you include the entire internet, including the Dark Web, the estimated size is 400-500 times larger. The Dark Web offers approximately 75,000 terabytes of data, and 57% of those sites include illicit material, and 60% of said data could be harmful to organizations. Now, if this doesn't frighten you enough, continue reading as the negative changes in the dark web post-pandemic are worse than a terrifying horror film.

As you probably know by now, to survive a malicious cyberattack, you must be prepared. Being prepared is a lengthy but essential process. This process is what we refer to as being cybersecurity-ready. Over the last three weeks, we broke down the steps of Cyber-Readiness. Although reasonably straight forward, these steps are extensive and necessary to help keep your hard-earned business safe from a successful cyberattack. As the process is vital in today's age of increasing cybercrimes, let's take a look at what we covered.

Cyber-readiness is the art of taking the proper steps to ensure your business is as prepared as it can be. You need a secure plan which assures that you have completed all the steps to ensure that your environment is without any major faults. Yet, there is still one more significant step. You must do your research. Are your passwords at risk? Are you monitoring your network? What are your vendors doing to protect you? If you don't know the answer to these questions, then you are at risk. Cybercriminals know and understand the proper channels to take to deploy a successful attack. In the final part of our cyber-readiness series, we are exploring the vital research needed to help keep your business safe.