This one has been getting around the internet for a little while now:

Tech Enthusiast:  Everything in my house is wired to the Internet of Things! I control it all from my smartphone! My smart-house is Bluetooth enabled and I can give it voice commands via Alexa!  I love the future!

Programmers / Engineers:  The most recent piece of technology I own is a printer from 2004 and I keep a loaded gun ready to shoot it if it ever makes an unexpected noise.

Ignoring for now the privacy concerns of the devices and applications that listen to your conversations to help better target advertisements at you, these are some interesting targets for the future.

For home and business users alike, whether you look after SCADA systems that control water flow at a dam or production equipment at a factory, or a home user with an internet connected CCTV, security system or media centre, make sure security is considered with at least updates, and complex passwords set.

For IT Admins, check out the great feature set that is available with Microsoft Intune for managing your endpoints. You can use it to apply policies for encryption, passwords, device wiping, update requirements and more. Do not let yourself fall victim to a compromise from a weak end user device.

Over the years, and especially this year with COVID, we have made great strides to empower staff to work remotely, and it’s easy to tick the box that it’s ‘working’. But once you are there, make sure you and the business fully understand where your data sits, where it is accessible from, and what risks that presents to the business.

A few tips to share with your staff:

• Whenever you get a new electronic internet connected device, set a complex password, and apply all available updates.
• Never use the same password in multiple places. All it takes is for one website that you used that password on to be hacked, and you are now an easy target elsewhere.
• If you find an unknown USB device somewhere, don’t connect it to your computer.  There are many attacks these days using a device left in a park or on a desk in a shared space.  Even a USB charging cable can install malware!
• Wherever possible, set up Multi-Factor Authentication (eg. SMS notification or using Google or Microsoft Authenticator apps.)
• If you are going to work from home, consider what information will be stored or accessible from your home PC. Does your system allow you to save passwords? A theft of your home computer could compromise your business.

When you hold important customer data, whether it be financial, personal or private information, it can be a competitive advantage that you can take to market if you have invested heavily in security and make it a point of difference that perhaps your competitors are not doing. People deal with banks because they know they are subject to strong regulation to make them safe. It is therefore not only risk mitigation that you are buying with your investment, but also peace of mind for your customers and a marketable benefit that you have.