Driving to work a week or two ago, the discussion on the radio peaked my interest. The presenters were discussing the fact that due to the ever-growing cyber world that in order to not have a mile-long address, individuals have started creating an email address for their new born child, and some people are even creating social media profiles for their children.

I started thinking that this is all good and well, but are you going to ensure that when your child is old enough to take over the accounts, that you have taught them how to be cyber safe?

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.

Hackers constantly adapt and change to fit into an environment where more security measures are being put into action and cyber security knowledge is being used. They are constantly finding new ways to breach systems.

 A “text book” approach is no longer an option, just when you thought you had the system on lock down, a new hack comes on the market and its back to square one. The methods that hackers have been using over the years are morphing into attacks that aren’t as obvious.

A new hack that has come into play is called PhishPoint. This is a hybrid version of a phishing scam, it uses Office 365 to lure the target into entering their credentials and gaining access.

Cyber Security may have seemed like a very specialized area of expertise and that it wouldn’t make sense to learn about it if you weren’t planning on making it a career path. This has changed drastically now that most of your life is run digitally. Being aware and educating yourself is becoming more of a necessity than just an extra notch on your knowledge belt.

Having a basic security knowledge will assist you in making decisions towards implementing professional cyber security plans within your place of work and creating a safer cyber home life.

It is no longer something you can be oblivious to, you assume that with anything related to your computer or network, its IT’s problem, it’s all on them and that you don’t play a role, that is far from the truth.

 The IT department and cyber security partners can only do so much to keep the security at its highest level, if you are clicking on suspicious links, putting infected usb’s into machines and sending money without verifying the sender, it will be impossible for them to keep the environment safe, this is why you need to realize that you play a big part in keeping cyber crime out of the office.