The same principle applies to Word and Excel “cheat sheets,” even password “protected” ones. Plus if anyone were to ever gain control of your user account, all of your portals would be thrown wide open – email, line of business apps, banks, Facebook, etc. But since those aren’t encrypted, getting to them is pretty easy for the bad guys. Yeah we know – it’s incredibly convenient for Google to auto-fill for you. And if you can… Avoid saving passwords to your browser (or a document) But get in the habit of crafting passphrases with 8-16 characters and some capitals and punctuation mixed in. But don’t overthink it we’re not asking you to use a longwinded, multi-stage, 400-digit monstrosity. This goes for your user account AND your email. Let’s take a look below at some ways you can help prevent a disastrous email hack: Make your passwords more complicated The reality is that the potential ways an intruder may exploit such a breach is limited mostly by their imagination. Other compromised accounts/machines (both in and outside your company)Īnd those are just the most egregious examples.But let’s look at what could have happened.īelow are a few of the potentially devastating results from an email breach: Thanks to a prompt and thorough response from the tech, no severe harm was done to either the individual or the corporation. The bad actor had then spoofed the user’s address and sent a malicious link to a significant number of people inside the organization. The tech quickly discovered a stealthily configured rule that caused automatic mail deletion (hypothetically making it harder to detect responses to the malicious link). The Axxys technician handling the case immediately changed her password, locked down her account, and began investigating and remediating the situation. They all contained roughly the same message: some variation of “Is this yours?” and an attached email “sent” by the user that they definitely had not sent. In the middle of a normal workday, concerned messages began flooding her inbox from numerous concerned coworkers, regional managers, even corporate office employees. Recently one of one our clients’ email accounts was hijacked by a malicious actor. One of the most commonly exploited vulnerabilities is something you use every day – your email. And they gain a foothold in much the same way as the knights of old – by finding tiny breaches in your defenses. Unfortunately, far deadlier foes have risen to take their place, armed not with swords and speeches, but with keyboards and scripts. This might seem an odd place to start when contemplating your cyber defenses, especially because kingly conquests and mighty armies don’t pose a danger any longer. Galvanized by his impassioned words, the army surges through the vulnerability to win the battle and claim their spoils – the fortress and all that belongs inside. Astride a bucking steed, sword held aloft, he bellows “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more / Or close the wall up with our English dead…” After Henry concludes a (significant) while later, the camera pans to show a single, small hole in the stronghold’s wall, framed in flame. In one pivotal scene, the titular king rallies his blood- and soot-stained army during a nighttime assault on an enemy fortress. Consider Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 film adaptation of Henry V. But hear us out – Shakespeare’s play Henry V can teach us a thing or two about preventing email breaches. Claiming that the works of 16 th century playwright could have anything to say about 21 st century cyberthreats sounds ludicrous.
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