Hacking can hit you at work or at home, with personal details stolen, email accounts compromised, and infected PCs putting you at risk of fraud.
By taking the right steps to protect yourself and by browsing safely online, you can help to prevent a security breach.
How do I know if I've been hacked?
Your email address might have begun sending out spam messages, or perhaps you receive emails or text messages about login attempts, password resets, or two-factor authentication (2FA) codes that you didn't request. Maybe your PC is running slowly, or you see logins from devices and locations you don't recognize in your account activity.
So, what steps can you take?
Update your security software.
Update your security software, run a scan, and delete any malware. Start with this, especially if you're not sure how someone hacked into your account. Use either the security software that comes with your computer, phone, or tablet, or call us for advice.
Click on the update settings on your security software to make sure that latest virus threats are in its database. Next, manually choose to run a thorough virus scan of your entire system - this should find anything that may have infected your PC and allowed hackers in.
Reset your online passwords.
When you've been hacked you should immediately change passwords on the affected accounts, and any other accounts with similar user names or passwords.
You can check to see if your email address has been caught up in a breach by typing it into https://www.haveibeenpwned.com - a database of compromised accounts. You can also check to see if your password has turned up in a breach on the same site by typing it into this page (it's perfectly safe to do so).
However, don't take this step until after you have run a full and up-to-date virus scan to make sure you have eliminated any key-logging malware which could capture your new passwords.
Reclaim your online accounts.
Google, Microsoft, Facebook and other platforms all offer tools for letting them know your account belongs to you, even if you have been locke out. A security process with questions about the account allows you to prove you are the rightful owner.
Talk to us about data security and backups.
If you've ever had a complete disaster where the whole IT system is lost due to a theft, fire or other disaster you will know just how important it is not only to have a backup of the system, but a plan for how to put it back together in a timescale which doesn't impact greatly on your business.
We can provide and action such a plan which will see your core systems back up in very little time. Talk to us today about it - seriously, it will be well worth it should it happen to you.
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