In this video, we're going to talk about Cyber Security, what is it, how does it work, what
should you be looking out for, and how can you solve it for you and your business.
Good day Dan, how are you?
Good Tim.
So you've seen different trends emerge in cyber security in the last decade or two.
How does this thing begin and where is it up to right now?
Cyber security started out probably 20 to 30 years ago maybe even longer but they were
fairly small, insignificant viruses that used to come up on the computer and it would just
be harmless pranks.
Quite often we'd say it was usually perpetrated by some balding fat guy
sitting in his mom's basement somewhere.
He's very smart, balding fat guy, yeah.
And it was really just to get maybe notoriety, certainly back in the early days of computer
viruses, it wasn't about malicious destruction of the data.
But then through the 90s and the early 2000s, computer viruses has started to evolve and
then it became more of a, instead of it being where people were just trying to get notoriety,
it did become more of an attack on the computers whether to shut the computers down or even
to start stealing data of the business.
And certainly nowadays, in the last 3 to 5 years, attacks are mostly centralized around
people trying to connect into your machines, and be
able to steal as much data as they can.
So how does that unfold?
What should people be looking out for?
What's the wrong move that people make that actually gets one of these attacks underway?
So generally these attacks will start by maybe an email coming into a user that looks like
a legitimate email.
It might say Australia Post and you're expecting a package.
It might say movie tickets and you won some free movie tickets.
Or maybe you're about to fly somewhere and it's an airline ticket.
I'm getting FedEx at the moment.
Lots of FedEx ones I think.
So it may look legitimate.
Fake FedEx I should say.
Well, it maybe fake in some cases it's legitimate but quite often, those fake emails if you
click on the link it takes you to a website, where the hackers can effectually then compromise
your computer and steal your data.
So, look out for the emails coming in from places that maybe you're not expecting it.
If you are expecting a package from FedEx, instead of clicking on the link, what I say
to people is go out to the internet, type in www.fedex.com and log-on to the website
and type in your consignment ID there rather than clicking on the link inside an email.
If users didn't click on links in emails, the data security spectrum - if users didn't
click on links in emails data security would be a lot better.
Alright.
So, let's say someone does actually click on a link and suddenly
something starts to happen.
What are you looking for, how does that unfold in that moment?
See, when a user clicks on a link, they may not necessarily know that their computer has
been infected.
It may take a few forms.
It might actually take several days for it to become apparent to the user that they have
clicked on the link that's malicious.
So as you start seeing some suspicious activity on your machine, what we'll say to you is
just turn the machine off as quickly as you can and just try and get some stability.
And if, once you have stability across the network and you're fairly sure that people
aren't trying to steal your data, then at that point that's when you call an IT professional
and have them look at your computers.
Okay.
So we'll talk more about ransomware which is what we're
talking about there, in another video.
Let's stay big picture for a second.
What are some of the security challenges when it comes to cloud computing?
How do you keep your data safe?
When you move your data to the cloud, one of the biggest ways of keeping your data safe
is making sure that users have got secure passwords.
So, ensuring the passwords are secure, ensuring the passwords are complex and not a simple
password that you may have used a few years ago, that was safe back then.
So I presume that the worst offenders are the password PASSWORD and I think 1234 is
also a No-No.
If those are wrong, what's right?
Try to use a password that has a combination of upper and lower case letters, the password
should also have numbers in it and those often numeric characters which are above the numbers
on the keyboard as well.
Use a password that has a good combination of those.
And also the length of the password is important, if your password is only 6 characters, it's
fairly easy to crack and for a hacker to come in and steal your data.
If your password is even 8 characters, but certainly up around 10,12 or 15 characters
your password is much more difficult for somebody to steal.
Sounds very hard to remember.
Can I use the same password for everything?
Or should I have different thing, different passwords for different things?
It's okay to use the same password for everything as long as you keep it secure.
Okay. Okay.
I get the idea.
So let's talk about cyber security now specifically for small businesses.
What should small businesses be thinking about as oppose to for example me and my email or
my Google accounts?
Small businesses need to make sure that all their staff are keeping their passwords
secure and trying to keep their data secure.
Don't give out information to people that you shouldn't be giving out.
But also educate your staff about what they should look for.
The staff, they don't understand that if they get some of these malicious emails coming
in, what are some of the telltale signs that it might be an email
that you shouldn't click on a link
rather than a legitimate email.
Alright, so they should be training them.
What would be 2 or 3 notes in that training?
What should you look out for in those emails?
The things that I tend to look out for in those emails is just simple things like,
is the grammar correct, are the pictures in focus or out of focus, does it come from a website
that doesn't sound like it's FedEx, maybe it's (Right.) FedEx parcels, or fedexpackages.com.au
Or myfedex, something like that?
Yeah.
Is it a website that's coming from a website that doesn't look like it's the intended sender
or who you think the sender is.
Am I wrong, can you, I think you can do this.
You can roll over a link, and you can like,
you know, something that says "click me" and you can actually see the URL at the
bottom of the screen in most cases and figure out if it's related or if it's not.
If you roll the mouse over it before you click on it you can generally see what the link
is before you click on it.
Before you do the damage.
But as I say, try not to click on any links in the email.
Go outside the web browser.
Access the website rather than clicking on link inside the browser.
Go direct.
Okay.
What are some, now let's talk about the solutions of course, that is one.
What are some
small business cyber security solutions?
So there's training, and not clicking on the link
and going to the site.
What are some other things that businesses can do?
Certainly the education of the users I think is the most important.
But then when you get past the education of the users, that then comes down to having
good software that's installed on the computer and also on the server that protects the server
from having hackers be able to break in.
So, good software can be anti-virus software that is on the server that is detecting these
kinds of attacks coming in.
And, I presume anti-virus software, anti-malware.
What's the difference between viruses and malware?
What is malware?
So, a virus is typically something that is coming to your computer without an invitation.
Malware is generally a link that you've clicked on that
you've authorized to come in to your computer.
Any other small business cyber security tips you have for us?
You have the user education.
You have the anti-virus software.
The other important tip for a business is to make sure that you have a suitable firewall
in place.
The firewall is the device which sits between your business and the internet and generally
protects your data from hackers trying to connect in.
So it's like anything the cheaper the firewall you get, it may not be as reliable as more
expensive firewalls.
So it really just comes down to what the business wants to spend on security.
Alright, terrific.
Thanks very much.
For those of you who'd like to find out more maybe get some specific advice from Dan, or
someone from his company, please visit us online at sabervox.com.au