In the digital age, being proactive about your device’s cyber security is an important choice to make. Personal and financial information that is important to you and those around you can be compromised if the devices you own are not secure, and you do not make the right choices while using the internet. Keeping up to date with your firewalls, computer security programs, and what cyber threat intelligence is available online for you to learn about are some major actions you can perform in order to boost your cyber security effectiveness.

Here are some of the major and recent breaches of security that happened to large corporations used frequently and daily by the general population. This information also includes some helpful tips for those who use the internet and services related to it in order to keep their vital information a bit safer and less likely to be obtained and abused by hackers.

Sony’s Playstation Security Breach

 In 2001 Sony’s Playstation 4 online systems were hacked into and the personal information of over 77 million people worldwide was compromised. These were vital pieces of information that were accessed from the accounts including names, addresses, and credit card information.

This has been recorded as one of the largest online security breaches in history, and reflects the importance of being careful where you save your personal information. Making sure not to click the “Save my payment information for future purchases” on websites and devices is one way to protect information from being stolen.

Yahoo Security Breach

 Yahoo is one of the leading search engines in the industry, and also has many features that other search engine websites have, such as the ability to create an email account on it. Between 2014 and 2016 a large amount of user information was breached by hackers and major settlements to compensate the users have been being conducted ever since. Over 3 billion users were affected according to this Wikipedia article on the breach.

It is very convenient in the modern fast-paced world to have your login information saved preemptively on things such as email, and helps save time when going to access the email account. This feature, although handy, can ultimately lead your account to have an easier time being accessed by hackers. Making sure websites make you login manually every time is a small proactive step you can take in order to lessen the chance of your data being stolen.

Facebook and the Frequency of Account Hacking

 Facebook has become a very common location for hackers to access people’s profiles and spread information-stealing viruses to help them access other user’s accounts. Frequently hackers and scammers create duplicate accounts of those who are typically the elderly in order to send these links as well, but outright profile theft and login information compromises happen just as frequently as well.

Similar to Yahoo and email websites, making sure that your social media accounts are not set to automatically be logged-in to is one way to protect yourself from hackers. Another method is to change your password on a regular basis to these accounts, once every few months or so, in order to keep your account updated. You can also enable a common feature called two-factor authentication on most website accounts you have which links your phone or another email that must be accessed in order to do things like change the primary accounts login information.

First American National Corporation

 Having your bank information stolen and your funds used illegally is one of the more worrisome and inconvenient things that can happen to you relating to cybersecurity. First National Bank experienced a massive security breach in 2019 that affected over 880 million people. Many banks are required to return the money to the account holders and conduct investigations into the purchases made by the hackers in order to file them as actual breach of security due to the bank’s practices and technology, so that makes a loss of funds a little less stressful.

Many banks do have a certain cap of how much money they can cover however, and if you are someone who has these large amounts of money saved, then you may want to make sure there are limits placed on your accounts and cards that only allow for purchases of up to a certain amount to be made at once, or limiting the number of purchases that can be made with the account per a certain time frame. People consider having to call their bank to receive clearance for purchasing high cost items like homes and furniture to be a hassle, but remember that these same factors that are inconveniencing you now may be useful for your money’s safety at another time.

Being proactive about the cybersecurity on all your devices is similar to eating healthy in this technology driver society, and just like taking care of your body, taking care of your information when online can help protect you in the long run and lead to an easier and more convenient life. Sometimes technology can be tricky or complicated, and even seem like it is merely inconvenient, but when you stop and reflect on the amount of technology you use related to the internet and cybersecurity on a daily basis, it becomes an eye opening experience as to why learning about threat intelligence news and maintaining good online information practices can help you stay safe and keep your money in the bank, literally and figuratively.

Consider the tips in the article and also look into purchasing additional cybersecurity software in the form of security programs and VPN software in order to make sure your personal and financial information is not compromised and shared on the world wide web. Also make sure to opt out of services saving your information, and keep your passwords to your account logins changed on a somewhat frequent basis. These changes can make a large difference in your safety and well being and can help secure your information and the information of others who are close to you.

Nucleon is an award winning organization that specializes in collecting and analyzing current threats on the internet and providing organizations/governments with proactive technology to enables them to defend against new and emerging threats.