Tag Archives: Online safety

Using safe precautions while online.

This can include blocking sites for employees that can be unproductive or potentially dangerous to compromising your network. Being aware of different approaches and types of cyber attacks is also part of online safety.

Cyber Liability Insurance

Data Privacy: Is my Data Safe?

Intro

In today’s advanced, analytical society, data rules the world. With such an emphasis on data to optimize business, there are plenty of sources to access tons of public data. However, most companies acquire a competitive edge based on their data privacy that should be for the company’s eyes only. Unfortunately for the company, complex supply chains provide opportunities for error in software framework to arise, either intended or unintentional. These mishaps in the supply chain can have drastic consequences for a company.

Through unintentional errors or on purpose, issues in software can be detrimental to a company’s data, and thus their operations. Misrepresentations in data have a large impact, hitting almost all facets of a business including marketing, accounting, sales, and finances. In addition, faulty data may affect customers which may be an even bigger concern than internal issues.

The Problems With Data Privacy

These problems will result in high costs for a company in order to fix the current supply chain and to make up for all those affected by the initial issue. Finally, some software issues stem from others trying to steal private information which opens a plethora of other problems like losing a competitive advantage which results in even more costs.

For example, consider a situation where a milk supplier delivers 1,000 gallons of milk every week to a grocery store. Through a faulty piece of software, a zero might be dropped resulting in a delivery of 100 gallons. This screws up the accounting as 900 extra gallons were accounted for and leaves normal customers without milk, weakening the reputation of the supplier. Also, the grocer will be unhappy, as they are missing out on 900 potential sales.

Real-Life Context

Now imagine an error like this occurring on a grander scale due to bad data and a bad supply chain. The consequences could be catastrophic! Just one erroneous piece in a huge chain can tarnish customers and other businesses’ views, invalidate the accounting records, and cause marketing to stray to the wrong demographic. Although it may seem like a minor detail, it is vital for companies to invest in high-quality equipment and software with routine maintenance in order to prevent mishaps that result in data impairment.

For more information on data privacy contact one of our Risk Advisors or call 914-357-8444.

 

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Risk Management

How To Set The Best Passwords For Your OnLine Activites

What’s the longest you’ve ever spent when trying to create a new password that 1) You will remember and 2) Satisfies your particular website’s password requirements? It’s taken me up to fifteen minutes before and that is not an exaggeration. I know you are all sick and tired of getting this message: “Sorry that password won’t work, you must include: a symbol, a number, a hieroglyphic, a gang sign, your favorite poem, an inspiring quote and an uppercase letter.” Here are some ideas for setting up the best passwords for your online activities.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal Article;  in 2003  Bill Burr published an 8-page primer advising people to protect their accounts by inventing awkward new passwords with obscure characters, capital letters and numbers, and to change them regularly. Earlier this month, however, Burr admits that his advice ended up largely incorrect, saying “Much of what I did I now regret.”  

When people change their passwords every 90 days or so, they are usually making very minor changes. These changes can be extremely easy to guess. For example, changing Ba$eball1! to Ba$eball2! isn’t exactly going to prevent hackers from breaking in. Here are some new tips on developing a great, secure password.

  • Drop the password-expiration advice and the requirement for special characters. Studies show they do very little for security, and multiple security experts say they “actually have a negative impact on usability.” And don’t use common substitutions, either! For example, “H0use” isn’t strong just because you’ve replaced an o with a 0. That’s just obvious.
  • Stay away from obvious dictionary words and combinations of dictionary words. Any word on its own is bad. Any combination of a few words, especially if they’re obvious, is also bad. For example, “house” is a terrible password. “Red house” is also very bad.
  • The longer the password, the harder it is to crack. Consider a 12-character password or longer.

We have too many passwords: almost three in five adults have five or more unique passwords, and nearly one in three have more than 10, according to a study by Janrain, a user management company.

The result is serious fatigue, to the point where one in three think solving world peace is easier than trying to remember all their passwords. With stats like these, is it any surprise that we collectively hate passwords?

As a result, people like me do dumb things, creating a few password variations to help an increasingly untenable situation. Or we do even dumber things, like use passwords such as “password” or “123456.” Or we create a “base” password and add a variation for each site. We know it’s stupid, but we’re driven to these solutions because we are lazy/our memories just can’t remember all those passwords. Consider John Podesta , Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair set his password for his account as “password” which is how the Russian’s stole all those emails. Easily one of the greatest bone head moves of all time in hindsight. Don’t be a Podesta.

Difficulty in remembering creates dangerous security backdoors that hackers are absolutely loving. So do yourself a favor and follow those three tips to building a safe and secure password. Lastly make sure your cyber liability insurance policy is paid up. All you have to do is watch the news to understand how vulnerable your company really is. If you have any further questions, contact Metropolitan Risk Advisory today!