Home, secure home

The largest amount of personal information is stored on your home computer, yet very little effort is given to protect it. If cyber criminals get hold of your personal information it can be used in line with social engineering to defraud you, or your place of work or even use your information in bigger fraud scams. So why do you skim on cyber security at home?

I asked several people their thoughts on this, and they came back with the same answers, it seems like too much admin or they just don’t know what they should be doing.

Most explained that when they come home from a long day’s work, the last thing you feel like doing is dealing with a slow computer doing updates or scanning, you want to wind down, relax and watch your favourite shows. You are so used to it being sorted out externally at work, or computers that are already configured with security monitoring in place, that you are lulled into a false sense of security when returning home.

You don’t think twice when you can’t find your favourite show on Netflix or Showmax to quickly type it into google and click on the first option available, that site isn’t secure so you have now opened your device up to being infected.  Your device where you do your internet banking from and has critical information about you and your family.

This means you are more vulnerable at home and that it should be the place you are on highest alert. ALWAYS make sure you are using a secure site.

Having your home computer secure will ensure yet another level of a multi-layered security system, if home and work are aligning, breaches will be unlikely to happen.

You need to be aware and understand that you are responsible for your home environment, you can’t blame IT or your cyber security specialists if you get breached. Get in touch with a specialist at J2 Software and find out what steps you can take to ensure a secure cyber home and sign up for the J2 Home Secure program so that you do not need to worry about it.

Realising that it is as important as having your work computer protected, will save you big time. Cyber attacks are at an all time high, cyber criminals are disguising their attacks more and more, by not having cyber security in place, you are making it so easy for them, you might as well hand your information over for their misuse.

Keeping your environment secure may seem like more admin, but trust me, having to do damage control after being breached, you will wish you took the steps to implement security measures.

#Letsgetreal

Olivia Hannah Coetzee