Finley: No business too small to be hacked
Cyber security programs get the attention of business leaders.
The biggest danger related to cyber security today is complacency, according to information technology security specialist Robert Finley. The technology consultant told members of the Rome Rotary Club Thursday that cyber security must be constantly updated as different threats emerge daily.
“Cyber crime is a business run by professionals in their field,” Finley said. “The digital underground has a thriving black market.”
Finley told the civic leaders hacking is not something that is targeted solely at big businesses such as J.P. Morgan or Equifax.
“No one is too small,” Finley said. He asserted that as many of 20 percent of the small businesses across the nation are victims of cyber crime annually, and that half of all cyber attacks are aimed at small to medium sized businesses.
Social media is a frequent pass through for cyber criminals.
“600,000 Facebook accounts are hacked every day,” Finley said. He also said nearly one million malware threats are released every day. “Hacking is no longer a fringe activity,” Finley said. He said “social engineering” is an everyday sounding name for the criminal activity.
A common way someone gains access to information involves receipt of an email asking the receiver to click on an electronic address to obtain some piece of information that may seem important. Once that click happens, the cyber criminal has access to just about anything on the computer or mobile device.
Finley suggested for those who do a lot of business on the internet to have a separate computer for doing their banking business as one of the best means of limiting access by cyber criminals to bank accounts.
“The FDIC does not protect against bank fraud,” Finley said.
He explained that the average cost of repairing records for victims of hack attacks is more than $200.
Finley also said it was important for people to have strong passwords and that a lot of service providers now want more than the old standard of eight characters for a password. Club member Jim Manis also suggested that two factor authentication was a good way to control access to a computer.
“Most of us, including me, are too lazy. But I think we’re all going to have to tighten up,” Manis said.