Did you know a five-character password can be cracked in three hours? That time is cut down to 11.9 seconds if you only use lower case letters.
As our world becomes more digitalized, our risk of becoming more vulnerable to cyber criminals increases. New threats appear on a daily basis and cyber attackers and hackers are constantly evolving their techniques, making it nearly impossible to keep up. Cyber crime is one of the fastest growing industries.
A large portion of this criminal activity is happening on The Dark Web. The Dark Web is not accessible with standard web browsers and can’t be found by using traditional search engines. 99% of activity that happens on the Dark Web is criminal activity. It includes illegal sites such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, organized crime and illegal information exchange.
The effect on society is in the numbers and it is ultimately one of the greatest threats across the globe.
- 80% of hacking-related breaches leverage stolen passwords and/or weak or guessable passwords. Experts suggest changing your passwords at least 1-2 times per year. Use uppercase, lowercase, and special characters
- 85% of businesses with <1000 employees have been hacked, and most don’t even know
- 2 Billion email account credentials and 85 Million stolen PII records (including address, phone number, driver’s license number, SSN, DOB, etc.) are for sale on the Dark Web.
- 73% of the US Population has at least 1 compromised Credential for sale on the Dark Web (237,736,356 as of March 2018).
- 19% of the US Population has a compromised Social Security number for sale on the Dark Web (60,441,444 as of March 2018). To avoid having your identity stolen, we suggest you freeze your credit. This must be done through all three credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion). Freezing your credit is free of charge and will avoid anyone from stealing your identity.
- 76% of all adults in the US use the same or similar passwords for sites they use frequently. If you don’t already, try to use different passwords for different types of accounts. If this seems like a daunting task, try one password for all of your social media sites, one for banking, etc.
- It costs $1-$8 to purchase someone’s credentials for fraud identity or fund criminal activity
Any documentation that has your personal information, shred it! This includes bank statements, credit card information, medical bills, IRS notices, etc. To avoid this, switch to paperless billing and have all of your statements be sent to you electronically.
It’s important to know the risks and methods attackers are using in order to prevent a breach.
If you have any questions, please contact us.
