What the Target Data Breach Can Teach Us About Your Website and Online Activity
by
Leah OsobaFor the past week, it?s been difficult to browse online news stories, watch the national news or pick up a newspaper without reading or hearing about the Target data breach. On December 19, the third largest U.S. retailer announced that data from debit and credit cards used within Target stores between November 27 and December 15 had been stolen. The breach has affected a staggering 40 million shoppers.
This American consumer data breach is one of the largest in history, coming dramatically close to the TJ Maxx and Marshall stores data breach that affected 45 million customers back in 2007.
Since the Target breach, there?s been a plethora of blog posts, articles and reports geared toward helping the 40 million compromised customers protect themselves. If you?re such a customer, you might want to check out one of our client?s blog posts. John Sileo is an expert on internet privacy, identity theft and technology security. Read his thoughts here.
But what if you weren?t affected by the Target data breach? There are still many steps you can take to protect yourself, including tips for your online activity and website:
1. Update Your Website
If you have a personal website or blog, or if your company has a website, you need to make sure it?s updated. Why? Because websites using old scripts are vulnerable to hackers. In fact, hackers go from website to website, quickly and easily testing vulnerabilities.
If your website hasn?t been updated and is using an old script, check to see if there is an update available. Keep in mind, just because you use a website development company or someone makes content and graphic updates on your website, it does not mean that your actual website script has been updated. If you?re just not sure, contact Prime Concepts Group and we can check it out for you.
2. Use a Terms of Use and Privacy Policy
To go along with the tip above, if you?re collecting personal information from people who visit your website, it?s important to use a Terms of Use and a Privacy Policy. Part of the reason for this is to save yourself from too much liability in the event that a hacker is able to steal personal information you have. Obviously, though, it?s important to take every measure possible to ensure the information you have is being stored correctly.
3. Use a Long, Unique Password for Everything? and Change it Frequently!
Believe it or not, many people don?t password-protect their personal computers?the first step to protecting yourself from hackers and unwelcome users. It?s also very important to make sure you?re using different passwords for all your online accounts. Otherwise, in the event of your personal information getting leaked anywhere, hackers can match your email address and password anywhere. When creating unique passwords, make sure they?re long and do not contain common words or number combinations. Ideally, they?d be a long series of letters, numbers and punctuation.
The Bottomline
The Target data breach demonstrates the fact that there?s no way to fully protect ourselves from risk?especially when we?re relying on others to accept and store our personal information responsibly and securely. With that said, the three tips above will go a long way toward protecting your website and online safety.
If you have any questions or concerns, please post in the comments below. If you?d like us to check out your website, we?re a quick call away?(316) 942-1111.