By Dean Inskip, Security & Compliance Officer
As we are all very aware, there are many ways cyber crooks can steal our credit card or private information; we hear about it in the news when the big breaches take place. Consider Neiman Marcus, where the information from over 1.1 million credit and debit cards was stolen; or the Target breach, where it has been estimated that up to 40 million credit and debit card numbers were stolen. How can we prevent this from happening to us?
Well, you may think it’s too challenging, too big of a task. “Let’s leave that to those gurus of the IT world and the cyber police.” In this case, it works much the same as a police force; we can’t do it without your help. We need “neighborhood watch” folks to help keep an eye out. You would notice that strange car that drives by every night after 11 p.m. with its lights off or the service technician who makes a house call wearing a ski mask. In the cyber world, crooks are not that easily spotted. They don’t even have to leave the comfort of their chairs to steal.
This is where you come in. You can help prevent those cyber crooks from shopping on our network, and it all begins with two little words – “common sense.” If we use the good ole common sense approach on some of the things we do in our jobs every day, we could prevent a vast majority of the security issues in our business.
How did the cyber thieves gain access to Target’s network? They did it by using a shared password, given to one, and then shared with another and stolen by another. Millions and millions of dollars were spent to fix something that could have been prevented if common sense was used. For the most part, everyone takes passwords for granted. “It’s only access to my email or my files … no one can get anything out of them they couldn’t get from the company bulletin board.” Well, it’s not always that type of information they are looking for. Sometimes, this first access to the network is what they want. Target reported that a third party vendor password allowed their hacker access, so your password would be a goldmine to this type of hacker.
Take just five to ten minutes to look at your desk, office, store or even your car from a crook’s viewpoint. I’m confident you would find two or three things you could change to help prevent theft and increase the security of private information for our customers, our employees and the company. It may be something as simple as those spare desk keys hung on a hook in the office, the employee files in your desk or that password that’s taped to the wall above the computer so the early shift can login when they get there. These are all things that breach security … things that seem small, but to those looking, are goldmines. Every one of them is something that can be easily corrected. We just have to be cognitive of them.
Take five to ten minutes and see what you can find. Share your findings with others and with me so that we can all benefit from them. It’s our company, so let’s keep it safe from those cyber crooks, that deliveryman or just that person who shouldn’t see it.