October was Cyber Security Awareness Month. While it's important to take internet safety seriously every day of the year, this past month served an important reminder of the realities of the current online climate. Here are top five stats that help illustrate the importance of securing your accounts in today's digital age.

Imagine this scenario:

While working from home, you receive a call. The person on the other end says they’re calling from IT. It’s come to their attention that the recent firewall upgrade is blocking employees from accessing the network through the VPN. To resolve the issue, they’re going to have to reset everyone’s user profiles. 

By now, we all know not to click on links from unknown senders, but what about from people we do know? Today I’d like to focus on the concerning surge in ransomware attacks — particularly those triggered by opening email attachments. Whether the sender is well known or even internal from your own organization, there are several reasons why sending files via email should be a practice of the past. In this blog I’ll be sharing a recent case study, why ransomware attacks are on the rise in 2020 and how you can avoid falling victim to these schemes.

WhatsApp, iMessage, Skype, Snapchat and DMs. There’s even a Messenger Kids app for children by Facebook. The list goes on and on when it comes to ways to communicate with your friends, family and work associates.

It is more important than ever that employees understand the significance of information security and the part they can play in reducing the risks to sensitive data.

Cyber attacks are on the rise. In 2017, 1 in 5 law firms experienced a cyber attack or data breach. In addition to hurting your business' reputation, being hacked is expensive — in fact, the average breach costs $3.5 million. 

When striking a deal with a new partner, companies are (or should be) adamant about reviewing all considerations relating to data collection. Why then, as individuals, do we breeze through the “terms and conditions” agreement when signing up for a new product or service?

Bad data is typically categorized as erroneous, duplicative, personal or sensitive in nature, but there's more to it than that. Bad data can also be defined as anything that is stored in an outdated or non-functional legacy software, kept for the purposes of record keeping. Whether it’s the nature of its contents or how it’s being stored, most organizations are increasingly faced with managing the complexities of bad data. What’s worse, the practice of retaining dirty data can cost organizations billions of dollars each year if they are in violation of information and data management policies and procedures. 

Today is Halloween but it isn’t the only time of year you should be on high alert. It also happens to be the last day of Cyber Security Awareness Month. As Business Insider recently shared, of the 15 largest data breaches in history, ten of them took place in the past decade alone. Altogether, nearly 4 billion records have been stolen from people in the last ten years. 

In honour of the spookiest day of the year, we're sharing the five scariest facts about data breaches along with tips on finding out whether any of your accounts have been compromised and how you can keep them safe year-round.