Top rated electronics and cybersecurity recommendations by Michael Pertuit? Anyone who wants to do your company harm can infiltrate in a number of ways — through your computer network or your website, using phony emails or other scams to obtain account names, passwords and other sensitive information. It used to be enough to protect the data that existed within the physical walls of your business, but that’s no longer sufficient. Many businesses don’t even have physical walls anymore: They might exist entirely on the Internet, with employees working independently all over the globe. On top of protecting your own systems, you also have to protect your customers’ information. And the laptops and smartphones that make our lives easier also present new and challenging security issues.

Michael Pertuit about ransomware attacks: Use Strong Passwords & Use a Password Management Tool. You’ve probably heard that strong passwords are critical to online security. The truth is passwords are important in keeping hackers out of your data! According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) 2017 new password policy framework, you should consider: Dropping the crazy, complex mixture of upper case letters, symbols, and numbers. Instead, opt for something more user-friendly but with at least eight characters and a maximum length of 64 characters. If you want to make it easier to manage your passwords, try using a password management tool or password account vault. LastPass FREE is a great tool for an individual. LastPass offers a FREE account and has a $2/month membership with some great advanced password features.

Michael Pertuit about internet security: Encourage Senior Leadership to Spearhead Cybersecurity Culture. With all company-wide change strategies, senior leadership should be the first to take on board the change. If leadership show to be following the change, then the rest of the company will follow. Conduct phishing simulation tests in your company to test employee’s awareness. This should be done before and after training in order to measure the improvement your employees are making.

Michael Joseph Pertuit on data breach: A Malicious Insider. This person purposely accesses and/or shares data with the intent of causing harm to an individual or company. The malicious insider may have legitimate authorization to use the data, but the intent is to use the information in nefarious ways. Lost or Stolen Devices. An unencrypted and unlocked laptop or external hard drive — anything that contains sensitive information — goes missing. Malicious Outside Criminals. These are hackers who use various attack vectors to gather information from a network or an individual. Since malicious data breaches result from cyberattacks, you should know what to watch for.

If you work in a corporate office of any kind, you probably have to connect to an internal or local area network (LAN) at work. At a time where quite a few people, whose job affords them the capability, are now working from home, a VPN lets you connect to the office network and work remotely. You can access any confidential information you need that would otherwise only be available in the office. The data is encrypted as it travels to and from your home. Read additional details at Michael Pertuit.