I came across a recent article which really made me sit back and wonder why is it that individuals know about the dangers of cybercrime and the types of scams to look out for, yet they do not do anything to prevent it?

The Business Tech article speaks about newly formulated statistics conducted with over 1000 south African internet users and the results are far from reassuring.

It is no use having the knowledge, visibility and resources if you are not going to action it.

One of my biggest worries when looking at stats like this is that there are some of you who are taking all your knowledge, putting it into practice and because there are those who are not doing the same, you could be at risk. Should they be a friend, colleague or supplier.

Third party risk is a big deal and often you can be unaware that those you deal with do not have the right security in place. It has become the norm to have third party vendors at the core of your business, this would mean that they have access to your confidential and sensitive personal and business information. Should they fall victim to a cyber-attack, your information and data will be part of that breach.

You may or may not have seen the latest Facebook trend that has gone viral and numerous articles that are skeptical of this seemingly “harmless” game.

The 10-year challenge has users adding a then and now photo, to show friends and family the effects of time and perhaps laugh at their former personas.

Just like click bait, this way of gathering data is a bait, and they wait to see you take it. By falling for these types of ploys, you are giving them even more information and allowing them to see what type of consumer you are, what ad’s will work etc.

This is all good and well, but with facebook’s recent track record for breaches, any information put on there is vulnerable, especially updated “now” versions of you. Perfect for tracking and hackers.

Fires have been raging all around the Western Cape in recent weeks and the effects have been devastating.

It got me thinking, that a breach is a lot like a wildfire, especially when it goes undetected for some time. By not having the capability to detect a breach, that acts like a strong wind that fans the flames and allows the hacker to spread and grow across the environment. When this is eventually detected and the fire dies down, you then bring in specialists like J2 Software. The damage has already been done, the information is gone and your reputation is decimated. Recovery is going to require far more time and much more effort to get back to 100%.

Being prepared and equipped, is the key. By now we should all understand that breaches will happen, you need to ensure that you have the right level of visibility to prevent the fire from going from a spark to an inferno. Why do so many wait until they have suffered a major loss before they get the right solutions in place to protect the organisation?

As we live in an interconnected world, every single system we interact with needs a password. Oh, the pain, the anguish and the downright aggravation of having to keep a different complex password every time we want to do something online or at work.

Simple solution, use the same difficult password for every system you interact with. What could possibly go wrong?

The truth is that for every system, cloud storage, app and network we place our information and login credentials into we increase our risk landscape. When you use a single password for every platform, a breach of one is a breach of all of them. You may practice safe cyber activity and still have your credentials compromised in a third-party app that has poor security measures.