What does Data Breach means? Why is it important to have an antivirus system and how can you prevent data from breaching?
According to the news recently, many information systems have been hacked which leads to information leakage. Hackers can make use of the stolen information to proceed with illegal acts, such as performing fraudulent online transactions and transferring money out from your bank account.
What is Data Breach?
A data breach comes as a result of cyberattack that allow cybercriminals to gain unauthorised access to computers and information systems, to steal private, sensitive or confidential and financial data. With most common data breaches, cybercriminals would want to steal names, email addresses, usernames, passwords and credit card numbers.
Importance of having an antivirus system in your computers or network.
Antivirus system acts like the "security guard" at the gate of your computers. This helps to protect the computer from incoming threat and seek outs, destroy and warns possible threats to the system. It is the job of the antivirus software to keep up with the latest threats. This is achieved by daily updates of the antivirus database definitions, which counteract the latest threats to provide constant protection.
3 effective ways to prevent data breach.
1. Limit access to your information system and data.
When you limit who is allowed to view certain documents, you narrow the amount of people who might accidentally click on a harmful link. This will help prevent unwanted ads and spam mails, and thus stay away from data breach.
2. Update software regularly.
All application software and operating systems should be updated regularly. Your network is vulnerable when programs are not patched and updated regularly. Install patches whenever available.Microsoft now has a product called Baseline Security Analyzer that can regularly check to ensure all programs are patched and up to date. This is a fairly easy and cost-effective way to strengthen your network and stop attacks before they happen.
3.Create strong passwords for your systems.
One thing that security experts will stress is the need of changing passwords regularly. Even on our home computers, we have learnt to use upper case letters, numbers and special characters when formulating passwords. Do make it as difficult as possible to prevent thieves from breaking in and steal your data.
"The only true statement about Cyber Security that it is not a matter if you will get hacked, but it is about when you will get hacked. Better to be safe than sorry!"