Are you Aware-ness Week

/in /by
Worried senior couple feeling stressed while have to pay their bills over Internet

January 31st thru February 4th of this year (2022) was Identity Theft Awareness Week, I bet you didn’t know that. This is in addition to the month of October being Cybersecurity Awareness month (established in 2003). Society has reached a milestone when it has to set aside a week to talk about Identity Theft. But in 2020 the number of cyber crimes rose 46% from the previous year, hitting over 4.7 million, and of that, 1.4 million were identity theft complaints. So yes, there’s definitely just cause for a week dedicated to “the talk”.

Companies that store information about their customers are prized targets for cyber criminals. In 2021, there were 1862 publicized data breaches (and countless unpublicized), that’s a jump of 68% from the year prior, with 83% of those attacks involving sensitive information. The pandemic is definitely a contributing factor to all of this, as companies shift from in-person sales to online and delivery retail. Professionals in the industry do not see the upward trend in attacks plateauing in the foreseeable future.

Some sobering statistics to dwell on:

  • Ransomware-related data breaches have doubled in each of the past two years. At the current rate, ransomware attacks will surpass phishing as the number one root cause of data compromises in 2022.
  • There were more cyberattack-related data compromises (1,603) in 2021 than all data compromises in 2020 (1,108).
  • Compromises increased year-over-year (YoY) in every primary sector but one – Military – where there were no data breaches publicly disclosed. The Manufacturing & Utilities sector saw the largest percentage increase in data compromises at 217 percent over 2020.
  • The number of data breach notices that do not reveal the root cause of a compromise (607) has grown by more than 190 percent since 2020.

Identity theft is big business, but an even bigger problem for those having to deal with it. The cost for consumers for 2020 was 56 billion. It can take six months for credit bureaus to be corrected, with roughly 200 hours and over one thousand dollars of time and money, for the average consumer to right what has been wronged. And if time and money were the only losses this story would be a travesty, but these additional and horrifying stats tell even more…

  • 84% of victims of identity theft reported issues with their sleep habits.
  • 77% reported increased levels of stress.
  • 64% had problems with concentration
  • 56% have persistent aches, pains, headaches or cramps.

With cyber criminals learning new tactics daily, it’s incumbent on businesses to be vigilant, and have all possible fail safes in place to protect customers’ and other sensitive information. For SMBs that cannot afford to have in-house IT support, you are especially vulnerable to attacks, and having a third-party support system in place could be the difference between preventing a breach, and having to pay to recover from one. 

IF your company should find itself under attack, with a data breach, or compromised security, contact Betterchips immediately. The quicker Betterchips can get involved, the more likely your company’s digital assets can be saved or restored. Don’t let precious time go to waste, contact Betterchips now.

The 4 Signs of A Cyber-Attack You Should Look for When Working from Home

/in , /by

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 only 29% of Americans were able to work from home, with most doing it less than 3 days per month. Now that most companies have successfully transitioned their employees to work from home thanks to the crisis, Buffer reports than 99% of employees want work from home to be a permanent fixture. While workers love it from a work life balance and thanks to it eliminating commutes, there are many risks that emerge thanks to Cyber Security challenges. In fact, most experts believe we are seeing a 40% increase in cybercrime thanks to hackers seeing opportunities in weakened security protocols.

While some businesses have a good enough cyber and network security system in place, many are not aware of the risks involved in connecting remotely.

The Global Cyber Center of NY recently held its first cybersecurity virtual event on the top threats of remote work.

“Organizations of all kinds are facing an uptick in email-based threats, endpoint-security gaps and other problems as a result of the sudden switch to a fully remote workforce,” says William Altman, Senior Analyst at the Global Cyber Center of NYC. “It’s now more important than ever to consider both the security practitioner as well as ethical-hacker perspectives in order to stay secure, that’s what this is all about.”

The Global Cyber Center of NY said that all employees should look for these 4 signs of a cyber breach:

  • Computer performance issues
  • The computer having new programs that you have not installed
  • Fake looking ads or pop-up ads appear on the screen, or more of them
  • Loss of control of the camera, mouse or keyboard.

The question most employees have when they feel they detect a breach is who to contact. Most companies should reach out directly to their Network Administrator and should provide a log of what they have seen, ideally with screen shots or the timing that it occurred. Network Administrators are under pressure to check out the issue, but they also they must protect the network. This is why we recommend they contact Betterchips. We are experienced in infrastructure issues and challenges like this, plus have a comprehensive background in digital investigations; so, we can not only stop and resolve the issue, but we can identify the source of the problem. If you or your clients see any of these 4 issues, please give us a call, on 1-866-270-2388, and we can quickly evaluate and build you a plan of action.

Are your client’s employees practicing good habits in the work from home environment?

/in , /by

We know how much you care about your clients and their employees. We at Betterchips are seeing that now is the perfect time for you to reach out and engage with your clients to offer them assistance and help on how they can be best prepared for cybersecurity protection. 

We are currently working with our partners and putting together the following options:

  • A Free Cybersecurity audit for any of your clients
  • A Virtual Class for your clients to help educate their teams

We stand by that either approach will greatly increase your risk of an attack in this new normal. However, if you are pressed for time and want something quick and easy to pass on to your clients then we recommend that your clients follow these quick recommendations:

  1. Make sure their teams improve your security on your home WIFI Network
  2. Implement 2FA on all devices used to access the network
  3. Never open emails from unknown senders
  4. Check the domain of the email, against the website domain of the sender, before downloading any attachments
  5. Encrypt all data, including chats, that you send 
  6. Limit the amount of work done on personal or mobile devices

These 6 recommendations will proactively protect your clients. However, we recommend that you work with us so that we can build a comprehensive and complete plan of action to best help each client. We can provide education and virtual training as well as make infrastructure recommendations. This is what we do and is a much better way to engage us, rather than calling us to solve an attack and perform the digital investigation. Let us know when you would like to chat, we can be reached on 1-866-270-2388

Is “The New Normal” putting your business at risk?

/in , /by

The emergence of COVID-19 has caused many seismic shifts in the business world. The first, and currently most prevalent, is the dominance of work from home. Millions of workers are now working from home, with companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook mandating their employees work remotely. Organizations are facing unprecedented challenges with work from home as it results in heightened security risks for companies of all sizes, and it is likely that your clients are at advanced risk of these threats.

At Betterchips, we want to keep our partners and our peers in the best space to stay safe from potential attacks and we recommend that you look into the 5 biggest threats that people are facing.

Personal and Mobile Device Security

With work from home, people are using much more devices, including their own, to save and manipulate files. They also use mobile devices to do work more frequently, which traditionally have different security protocols and can be attacked in different ways. These devices are a much bigger treasure trove for hackers as they have more personal data on them. To prevent the risk of attacks here, we recommend that security teams should require device registration and provide oversight of devices allowed to access company data.

Strong Password Management and Authentication

Password policies are key and with employees using more devices and applications, then moving to options like 2FA will allow for a safer and more robust approach to password management. This will also reduce the burden on things like password resets into your administration teams.

Encrypt Your Data

Unencrypted data can be accessed and is much easier to hack. This is why security professionals should adopt and enforce encryption policies, especially as a large majority of employees are now remote. It is critical when people work from home as there is much more online and chat conversations occurring as human to human interaction is limited.

Make Sure Connections Are Secure

Remote workers are always at risk of not using secure connections, as they are not on the company network, This gives hackers a great path to access their computers and the company network. This is part of the education a company should do to their employees to remind them to use a secure network. Also, using a virtual private network can help to ensure that employees are secure when they access your company data, systems, and applications.

Educate on Cybersecurity Awareness

The best way to protect from a cybersecurity attack, is to educate your workforce on what they should do if they are suspicious of an attack or think they have been attacked. Education is something we can assist with, as our team can speak with you or your clients and help bring employees up to the expert level, and reduce the risk of attack.

If we can help you with any of these issues, please drop us a line at 1-866-270-2388, and we can quickly evaluate your current cybersecurity situation and build you a plan of action.

.

We Identify, Interpret and Remedy Complex Technology Casework, Matters and Incidents for Professionals and Business Stakeholders.

Site Navigation

Products and Services
About Us
Careers
Case Studies
Blog
Contact Us

Legal

Terms of Service
Privacy Policy

© Copyright – Betterchips Consulting Corp. – All rights reserved.
Disclaimer: Betterchips Consulting Corp. is not a law firm and does not offer or provide legal advice or service of any kind. If requested, we may be able to provide an attorney recommendation.