7 Security Breaches on Sites We Use Everyday

Many sites we visit daily get hacked into by those who try to steal identities or credit card information or both. This causes severe issues with businesses who daily earn our trust, such as banks or hospitals, schools and regular apps we use for social purposes.

When those sites are compromised, we can sometimes lose trust and it can be devastating for everyone involved. Calls have to be made to banks, passwords need to be changed, sometimes the process can take several days and upwards of months or years.

Facebook

25 September 2018
50 million users affected

Hackers obtained information on users’ gender, date of birth, relationship statuses, location and even recent internet searches. All data that could be used in identity theft to answer personal security question quizzes on other platforms.

Concerns of privacy also rose as the realization to access third party applications that use Facebook as a login were at risk.

LinkedIn

2012, and again in 2016
167 million users affected

Before 2012, LinkedIn was not using methods like “salted” or “hashing” to make passwords more difficult to obtain. Originally 6.5 million accounts were being reported as having been hacked.

Four years later in 2016, a hacker by the name of ‘Peace’ stated he had access to the information and was ready to sell the data with nearly 117 million cracked passwords.

For future protection, LinkedIn urged users to enable two-step verification for their accounts.

Target

November 2013
70 million users affected

During one of the most inconvenient times of the year—the December Holidays—Target got hit by a major cyber security breach.

Malware was installed on a customer service database affecting nearly 41 million customers and their private payment card information.

Target helped consumers who suffered the most losses by paying up to $10,000 per person.

EBay

Late February 2014
145 million users affected

Luckily no financial information was breached. However, passwords, names, and physical address were taken.

The height of this cyber security threat was the impact that it had on employees. Their log-in credentials were stolen and used to illegally access eBay’s corporate network.

JPMorgan Chase

June 2014
76 million households
7 small businesses

90 servers were compromised when hackers were able to penetrate a Chase employee’s personal work computer.

This particular case challenged the public’s perspective on cyber security. It was not Target or eBay, but rather the banking industry, packed with account numbers and social security numbers.

TicketFly

May 30, 2018
27 million affected

In this case, TicketFly was held at ransom. A hacker attempted to notify the site of a security flaw and asked for one bitcoin to remedy the site’s vulnerability of user information.

When the site did not respond to the concern—the hacker did—by releasing nearly 27 million user email addresses.

Houzz

Late December 2018
Users Affected: Unknown

Houzz is one of the newest victims of data breaching. Encrypted passwords, IP addresses, and ZIP codes are just a few of the concerns users are facing in this heist.

Users were ushered to reset their account passwords as hackers could attempt to use leaked usernames and passwords on other sites.

IT Support You Can Rely On

We have your back to protect your site from potential cyber attackers. Contact our solutions team at (888) 800-0433.

You can also fill out a free, no-risk IT Security Assessment on our site at: https://netcov.com/info-tech-security-assessment/

References:
Facebook: https://www.consumerreports.org/digital-security/what-makes-the-facebook-data-breach-so-harmful/

Facebook: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/technology/facebook-hack-data-breach.html

JPMorgan Chase: https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/chase-breach-affects-76-million-households-a-7395

Houzz: https://www.digitaltrends.com/home/houzz-data-breach-password-change/

Houzz: https://www.techradar.com/news/houzz-reveals-it-suffered-a-data-breach

TicketFly: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/j5kd4b/ticketfly-hack-breach-26-million-users-emails-home-addresses

LinkedIn: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/linkedin-2012-data-breach-hack-much-worse-than-we-thought-passwords-emails/

LinkedIn: https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/us/security/news/cyber-attacks/2012-linkedin-breach-117-million-emails-and-passwords-stolen-not-6-5m

EBay: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/05/21/ebay-asks-145-million-users-to-change-passwords-after-data-breach/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.37efcfa160fd

Target: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/05/21/ebay-asks-145-million-users-to-change-passwords-after-data-breach/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.37efcfa160fd

Target: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/05/23/target-pay-185m-2013-data-breach-affected-consumers/102063932/

Deciding what type of managed services are required for your business takes some time to plan. Simple upkeep or a full suite of services, and anything in between is things that each company must take into consideration.

Do you need networking and infrastructure? This can be set up on-site or help find the right outsourcing due to the requirements of each individual company. Or do you need more?

What are Managed Service Providers, MSPs?

Currently, there are three main categories as follows:

• Lower-Level, Pure-Play MSPs
  • These companies manage by keeping everything running, monitoring, and alerting, without taking responsibility for business needs.
• Mid-Level, Value-Added MSPs
  • In addition to the Low-Level, disaster recovery, software maintenance, and other broad range services are provided.
• High-Level, Outsourced MSPs
  • This is a full spectrum of services from providing equipment to filling all the needs of any company they serve, on and off-site.

Security management consists of all aspects of network security which includes risk prevention, security, and making sure all the latest versions of anti-virus software are installed and maintained on the system as well as individual computers for each employee.

Planning for more effective and useful networking solutions, or data analytics monitoring may be what your company needs as well.

And finally, support services. This can vary from help desk support and/or technical support, on and off-site.

There are also some additional services your company may want to consider such as mobile device help, as many companies need individual cell phone use, or just having employees use their own phones for business. This can sometimes lead to a breach in security if they are not connected to a secure connection.

Cloud computing is a feature that is a new type of service wherein storage and the sharing of valuable data is possible. It is important to keep the wrong people from gaining access to shared information. Dedicated MSPs and handling your organization’s cloud infrastructure can relieve the stress of someone who isn’t familiar with this type of storage from handling it incorrectly.

Another feature is the ability to have a data backup system in place is important to make sure that nothing is lost should the worst situation occur. We’ve all had our computers crash and the most inopportune times and auto-saving is vital as well as backup storage, to protect anything from getting lost when that happens. Just because the power goes out does not mean that all is lost when things are properly planned for.

Does Your Company Need a Help Desk?

Many times, managers can end up being the go-to for every question from their employees. This may be good for business-related issues, but simple, or maybe those not-so-simple problems can sometimes be better handled by having a help desk with trained technical staff members ready to help keep everything up and running.

Business Growth with Managed Infrastructure Services

When thinking about your company’s growth, there are many challenges when it comes to IT infrastructure. Things such as Hardware – servers, data centers; Software – CRM, ERP, etc.; and Network Security. These services can drain the resources of your company and your employees if they don’t have this set up effectively.

As your business grows, implementation, integration, and management are important. Avoiding threats by auditing and monitoring the information data, systems, and applications. Testing the flow of information as well as sensitive data and systems is a complex and tedious task. Keeping up with updated policies and procedures as well as applications and software is paramount to keeping data secure.

These are things that can take more time if not handled by those who have the know-how to deal with them on a day-to-day basis. Not having the correct amount of education can cause serious breaches in security and can put your company and information gathered from customers in danger of being compromised. Sometimes paying for a good management source is money well spent in the long run.

Think of this as insurance for your home. We pay monthly and most will never use it. But when that window breaks or the tree comes crashing down on our roof, it is comforting to know that this is all covered by someone who knows how to get the job done and do it correctly. Our favorite uncle may not be the best resource for finding a service to help in a dire situation like that!

 

For more information on how we can help, fill out the contact us form and we’ll get in touch to set up a time to go over all your business needs! We’ve got you covered!

 

 

 

Resources:

https://acp.us.com/looking-at-the-various-types-of-managed-services/

https://consoltech.com/blog/types-managed-it-support-drive-business-success/

 

 

 

 

 

Backing Up Your Computer System

How many times have you written that report or taken those amazing once in a lifetime pictures only to have your computer crash and then everything is lost forever? Starting all over with that report may be okay, but those pictures? Yikes!

Fortunately, most people now have phones that are able to save things to the cloud or on several devices to help avoid those emotional losses, but sometimes there is really nothing you can do but chalk it up to a lesson learned.

Let’s look at some ways that you can backup your data to prevent your emotions from going haywire!

External Hard Drive

A lot of students get used to carrying an external hard drive to and from school because they tend to use a school computer for all their assignments. Especially with videography or photography, storing information and programs such as the Adobe Creative Software makes it impossible to store if you don’t have those programs on your home computer.

This can save both time and money for student while they are using valuable resources for other purchases, such as tuition!

Personal users may want to free up some of the space on their computer as well with the memory being used for images. These can take up a lot of space, so sometimes having an external source can be prudent in saving money from having to buy more memory.

The down side to an external hard drive is that it can sometimes get lost or destroyed. It can also suffer from a crash causing a loss of most or sometimes all the data that is being stored. In cases of flood, fire or other disasters, it too can be destroyed or not readily taken with you when you have to flee your home suddenly.

Back Up Data on the Internet Itself

There are many internet programs or sites that allow up to a certain amount of free storage space for backing up data. Many charge a small monthly fee that can be upgraded as the data becomes larger.

Some of these services include:

• Backblaze
• Carbonite
• MozyHome

Since these are online, it protects against all types of data loss. Also there is no threat against natural disasters, theft or fire damage. However, they can start to add up financially as to the cost. As a personal user, this may not be something you want to invest your money, however as a business, this could be a good time to look into other options, such as cloud services to see what options work better.

It is best to stick with internet services that have stood the test of time, as they won’t disappear suddenly, taking all your stored data with them. There are new company’s starting up all the time, and it’s hard to say how long they will last without the monthly fees helping them survive.

Burn Onto CD, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, or USB Flash Drive

As with an external hard drive, these are also good options. They are a bit more affordable and are very portable. You could have different drives or CD’s for each topic making it easier to sort through.

Unfortunately, they are also easy to misplace or lose entirely. Flash drives can be just like those elusive socks put in the dryer that seem to always get separated from each other! Since they are small, it’s easy to leave in a pocket or on someone else’s computer.

They also don’t have a very high capacity to store a large amount of data. For larger files, this can be annoying at best when trying to work with files that are being used on more than one drive.

Back Up Storage Using the Cloud

There are many cloud programs or sites that allow up to a certain amount of free storage space for backing up data.

Some of these services include:

• iCloud – this service includes 5GB of free storage and syncs with other Apple products.
• Google Drive – associated more closely to Android products and includes 15GB free storage.
• OneDrive – accessible through Windows 10’s file explorer and includes 5GB free storage.
• Dropbox – offering personal and business subscriptions. The personal account includes 2GB free storage for data.

Find the Services Best for Your Company

With all the options available, it may be time to look over your company needs and determine which backup plan is best for you. As a personal user, your needs may be entirely different and so using a smaller, easier to use plan may be the best option.

At any time, our services are available to be discovered and utilized. Give us a call or contact us today!