Whether you work remotely or in an office, the line between personal and work tasks can become blurred when working on your company computer. If you’re in front of a computer for most of your time during work, then it’s not unusual to get attached to your desktop PC. Over time, this can lead to doing personal things on a work computer. At first, it might just be checking personal email while on a lunch break. But as the line continues to get crossed, it can end up with someone using their work computer just as much for personal reasons as work tasks. In a survey of over 900 employees, it was found that only 30% said they never used their work PC for personal activities. The other 70% admitted to using their work computer for various personal reasons. Some of the non-work-related things that people do on a work computer include: Reading and sending personal email Scanning news headlines Shopping online Online banking Checking social media Streaming music Streaming videos/mov...

In 2020, 75% of companies around the world experienced a phishing attack. Phishing remains one of the biggest dangers to your business’s health and wellbeing because it’s the main delivery method for all types of cyberattacks. One phishing email can be responsible for a company succumbing to ransomware and having to face costly downtime. It can also lead a user to unknowingly hand over the credentials to a company email account that the hacker then uses to send targeted attacks to customers. Phishing takes advantage of human error, and some phishing emails use sophisticated tactics to fool the recipient into divulging information or infecting a network with malware. Mobile phishing threats skyrocketed by 161% in 2021. Your best safeguards against the continuous onslaught of phishing include: Email filtering DNS filtering Next-gen antivirus/anti-malware Ongoing employee cybersecurity awareness training To properly train your employees and ensure your IT security is being u...

It’s not unusual to change a mobile number from time to time. For example, when you move, you may want a number that is local to the area you just moved to. Companies also may end up recycling mobile numbers throughout their staff as people come and go. If you don’t properly detach your mobile phone number from all the accounts it’s used with, you can leave yourself open to identity theft, credit card fraud, and other crimes. In a 2021 Princeton University study, it was found that 66% of mobile numbers listed as available by major mobile service providers were still connected to accounts on popular sites (Amazon, PayPal, etc.).  So, after the former owners had turned in the number, it was available for someone else to use when signing up for mobile service. And that number was still being used on the former owner’s cloud accounts, allowing those accounts to easily be breached. P r i n c e t o n U n i v e r s i t y s t u d y o n t h e r i s k o f r e c y c l i n g...

Over 2.4 million searches happen every minute on Google. It’s often the first stop people make when they go online. We search daily for both personal and work needs, and often searching out the right information can take a lot of time if you have to sift through several irrelevant results. One study by consulting firm, McKinsey, found that employees spend an average of 1.8 hours daily , or 9.3 hours each week, searching and gathering information. This can be a productivity sinkhole as more web results keep getting added to the internet every day. One way you can save time on your personal and work-related searches is to learn some “secret” Google search tips. These help you narrow down your search results and improve productivity by helping you find the information you need faster. Search a Specific Website Using “site:” Image Credit Sometimes you need to find information on a specific website. For example, you might need to locate a government statistic that you know is out...

The global damage of cybercrime has risen to an average of $11 million USD per minute, which is a cost of $190,000 each second. 60% of small and mid-sized companies that have a data breach end up closing their doors within six months because they can’t afford the costs. The costs of falling victim to a cyberattack can include loss of business, downtime/productivity losses, reparation costs for customers that have had data stolen, and more. You may think that this means investing more in cybersecurity, and it is true that you need to have appropriate IT security safeguards in place (anti-malware, firewall, etc.). However, many of the most damaging breaches are due to common cybersecurity mistakes that companies and their employees make. The 2021 Sophos Threat Report , which looked at thousands of global data breaches, found that what it termed “everyday threats” were some of the most dangerous. The report stated, “A lack of attention to one or more aspects of basic security hygiene ...