To be able to fully embrace the benefits of the kind of technology that crosscuts all our lives, we need to exist online to some degree. This, in turn, presents vectors by which media, criminals and wider threat actors can target us. Be this through data breaches, recycled passwords, reputationally damaging content or myriad other means.
In spite of this, we all need to be able to live our lives safely online, and good intelligence and security provision is about enabling activity through scaled mitigation, rather than stopping activity because of perception of threat.
The answer, is to map our own data footprint and understand where we may be vulnerable and where we may have exposed sensitive information over time, having mapped ourselves we can put in place measures to ensure that gaps in our online defences are plugged, and weaknesses become strengths.
It is not just senior personnel who are targeted by such activity, but all of us, every day. This most frequently manifests as scam phone calls, emails, or text messages, and does not discriminate, but rather seeks to derive information and benefit from a massive audience.
Key mitigations include:
o Enabling breach data monitoring.
o Changing breached passwords.
o Updating security settings on social media accounts.
o Full spectrum account audit.
o Security awareness training for friends and families.