Protecting Your Online Accounts from Being Breached

More than ever, our login credentials are being obtained by Dark Web users, therefore you need to ensure that you are protecting your online accounts. With both personal and business accounts being at risk, there is potential for any account to be breached. Hackers are looking for, and willing to, obtain all the sensitive and confidential information they can.

The increased reliance on the use of cloud services has meant the amount of cloud accounts being breached has increased dramatically.

There’s a range of costs that are involved with the breaching of a personal cloud and they should not be overlooked. Identify theft and ransomware affection are only a couple of examples…  

Although you may think that this would shock users into ensuring their login credentials are secure, you would be surprised to see just how many of us are still practicing bad password habits:

• 51% of people use the same passwords for both work and personal accounts
• 36% of people engage in bad password habits because they believe their accounts are not valuable enough for hackers
• 85% of data breaches involved a human element, including phishing, stolen credentials, and human error

The risk from cloud accounts being breached needs to be considered. Protecting your online accounts security from being compromised is difficult, but there are a range of precautions and cyber security services that you should take into consideration.

The importance of Multi-factor authentication (MFA) when protecting your online accounts

The best method to help with protecting your online accounts is MFA – Multi-factor authentication. This method of protection has been proved to prevent approximately 99.9% of false sign-in attempts, according to a study cited by Microsoft.

Through adding a second requirement when attempting to login (which is generally an input code sent to your phone) you can significantly increase the security of your account. In most cases a hacker is not going to have access to your phone or another device that receives the MFA code and so will not be able to get past this step.

Although, this additional step may feel like an inconvenience and unnecessary at the time, it is the difference between your account being protected or hacked.   

Protecting your online accounts with a Password Manager

An easy way for hackers to obtain your login credentials is when your passwords are kept in an unsecured way. An example of this could be having a big list of your passwords on an unprotected word document.

To prevent your passwords from being at risk of being breached, a password manager is an essential. It provides you with a secure and confidential platform to keep all your passwords. It can also minimise the burden of your brain power as you only need to remember one secure password to access all your passwords.

Password managers also have the ability autofill your passwords in all different types of browsers, indicating just how convenient they can be.

Re-evaluating your Privacy and Account Settings

The misconfiguration of security settings is the one of the most common causes of a cloud account breach. Hackers can easily take advantage of a situation where security settings have not been set properly.

You should practice reviewing and adjusting your security settings to ensure your account is safeguarded properly to maximize cyber security.

Making the most of your password settings in your browser

You might have taken a range of precautions to help keep your passwords secure, however there is a still a chance that they could be leaked. This can occur when a cloud service or retailer you use has a master database of usernames and passwords that have been used, and then this database is exposed.

In this type of situation, the Dark Web may be putting your credentials up for sale without you being aware.  

This has been reviewed by various browsers to see where there is opportunity for security to be maximized. Now, when you have saved a password to your browser, it is monitored by the browser, so if there then was a situation where it may have been leaked, you will be alerted.

This monitoring may be something that you will have to enable, you should go into the password settings to ensure that it has been, so it will alert you as soon as possible if your password has been leaked.

Protecting your online accounts with passwords and Public Wi-Fi

You should assume when using public Wi-Fi service that the activities you are undertaking are being monitored by an unwanted party. Public Wi-Fi spots including airports, restaurants and shops are a hotspot for hackers as there is a big opportunity for them to obtain your sensitive data.

When connected to a public a Wi-Fi, you should ensure that you are not entering any sensitive credentials, like bank details for example. You should opt to use your phone’s wireless carrier connection or use a virtual private network (VPN) app which prevents unauthorized access to your data.

Practicing Good Device Security

Some attackers will hack your device using malware. It is possible that your accounts could be breached without the attacker even having a password, in an application where you are already logged in for example.

An online account breach can be prevented through ensuring your device security is up to date. Examples include having antivirus/anti-malware and adopting the latest software.

Are you looking for password and account security?

Don’t leave it too late to ensure your online accounts are secure.

Through reviewing your businesses current cloud account security, we can offer business IT support and advice across Ipswich, Felixstowe, and the surrounding Suffolk area. With our diverse range of cyber security services, it possible for any business, no matter how big or small to be able to tackle the threat of cyber-attacks.

Corbel will work proactively with you to understand your risks and how to mitigate them as well safeguarding you from any potential viruses and threats.

If we can offer you any help or advice, we would love to assist. Just give us a call 01473 241515 or email info@corbel.co.uk

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Ipswich based Corbel Solutions Ltd offer Cyber Security and IT consulting services to small and medium businesses across the Suffolk area. Protecting your passwords and data whilst ensuring your accounts are secure, will prevent confidential information from being breached.