Technically Easy

Category: Security

Security is an important topic when it comes to technology. There are many different areas of security, so this category is divided into various sub-categories to help navigate through the posts on security.

  • Everything you need to know about VPNs

    Everything you need to know about VPNs

    Privacy has been among the major concerns for most internet users in the last couple of years. We have had so many data breach scandals in recent years, which have left many internet users worried about how their data is handled by the various apps and websites they access on the internet.

    Among the best solutions for safely using the internet is installing a VPN app on all your devices. But what is a VPN and how exactly does it ensure your privacy while using the internet? Let’s find out.

    What is a VPN?

    A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a service that protects your internet connection by encrypting your browsing information hence hiding it from all third parties, including your ISP and government. Even the websites and online services you use won’t see some of your personal information, including your location, the browser you are using, and the IP address of the device you are using.

    However, you need to choose a reliable VPN app if you are to enjoy all the benefits that come with using a VPN service.

    How does a VPN work?

    While browsing the web or using a mobile app, you are constantly sending data from your device and getting feedback (data) from the website or web application you are interacting with. Without a VPN, this raw data can be intercepted and accessed in between the journey by your ISP and several other third parties. If you are using a public WiFi network, people using the same network can easily know your device’s IP address or even access your device.

    When you use a VPN, all your browsing data is encrypted before it leaves your device. This data is then sent over to the VPN’s server. The request to the website or web app you are interacting with will now come from the VPN server and not your device. That is why the websites and apps you use will never know your real location if you always use a VPN.

    Since all your browsing data is encrypted, they also won’t get any of your other browsing details such as your IP address, the browser you are using to access the internet, the operating system of your device, etc. This makes it almost impossible to profile you unless you agree to give them your personal information voluntarily.

    To ensure fast and reliable connection speeds, VPN services build several servers in different locations. Users are then distributed among these servers to ensure no single server slows down due to congestion. For example, a VPN service like Surfshark has over 3200 servers in 65 countries. So, always make sure to check the number of servers a VPN has and where they are located before choosing the VPN app to install.

    Users also have the option of choosing a server which they would want their data to be sent through. For the fastest connection speeds, it is best to choose a server in a region closer to you. However, if your main reason for using a VPN is to access location-locked content and apps, choose a server in one of the unrestricted countries.

  • Tips on Reducing Ransomware Attack Risks

    Tips on Reducing Ransomware Attack Risks

    As a business owner, there are many things you need to keep an eye on. This includes watching the business finances, dealing with staffing, and making sure you have the right services and equipment in place for efficient operation. Another thing you need to do is protect your business, and one of the things you need to protect against is cybercrime.

    With businesses now more reliant than ever on digital technology, the risks in relation to cybercrime activities have rocketed. Technology has become increasingly sophisticated over recent years, but so have the methods used by cybercriminals. This means that it is up to you as a business owner to ensure you have measures in place to protect your data, files, and systems from problems such as ransomware attacks, which can cause a huge amount of damage to businesses in a variety of ways. In this article, we will look at some tips to help you to reduce the risk of ransomware attacks.

    What you can do

    There are a number of steps that you can take in order to protect your business against cybercrime such as ransomware attacks. Some of the ways in which you can do this are:

    Educate your employees

    One of the things you need to do is to prevent these attacks from occurring in the first place, and this can be done by educating your employees. There are various ways in which ransomware can enter your systems, and often this is due to staff members being unaware that they are doing something that could potentially put the business at risk from this type of attack. This includes opening suspicious attachments or clicking on links in phishing emails. So, make sure your staff are trained to identify the possible risks.

    Have a reliable backup

    Another thing you need to do is to ensure you have a reliable backup of your files and data in case your systems are infected. If you are hit with a ransomware attack, you can wipe the infected files and replace them from a reliable backup source. This can save you a lot of headaches and stress as well as money. Using a reliable cloud backup solution is something that a lot of businesses do, as it offers affordability, ease, efficiency, and convenience. It also means that you can benefit from the advanced security that is put into place by the operators of the third-party servers.

    Protect your backup

    Of course, you must never underestimate the expertise of cybercriminals when it comes to conducting their questionable activities. These days, they can also affect your backed up data, and this means you also need to protect this for additional peace of mind. Using solutions such as Veeam Object Lock can add that extra layer of protection so that cybercriminals cannot access and change your files and data. You can also protect your data with a robust cloud-to-cloud backup solution that backs up data stored in one cloud backup service to another, making it virtually impossible for critical data to be lost from cyber attacks.

    These are some of the key steps that you can take to protect your business from this type of activity.

  • Backblaze: How Much Does It Cost?

    Backblaze: How Much Does It Cost?

    There are 2 main products under the Backblaze name: the sibling Personal Backblaze and Backblaze Business which are both used for cloud backups and the Backblaze B2, an IaaS platform.

    Both solutions allow you to store and backup your data on the cloud, however, their intended user bases are different. Thus, it only makes sense that the pricing structure between these services is also different.

    Regular Backblaze vs Backblaze B2

    The regular Backblaze pricing is a set price per year or per month. Meanwhile, the Backblaze B2 is charged on a per GB of data downloaded and stored basis.

    BackBlaze Personal and Backblaze Business

    The regular Backblaze solution has a pricing structure per computer since you can only backup one device with every license. It is possible for you to buy more than one license at a time, however, there is no discount for doing so.

    Backblaze Pricing

    If you sign up for every month, you are billed $6 per month. This totals $72 for a year.

    If you want a cheaper option, you can simply go with the yearly plan. It costs you $60, meaning you only pay $5 a month. Lastly, for the cheapest pricing per device, you can sign up for 2 years upfront for $110 per device. This translates to $55 a year or $4.58 a month.

    Backblaze B2 pricing

    B2 offers a storage price of $0.005 per GB per month. Take note, that the first 10GB of storage is free. Download costs, on the other hand, are $0.01 per GB per month. It also comes with 1GB of free download per day.

    Backblaze B2 Pricing

    In addition, you are also charged for API calls. The first 2,500 calls each day are free and will cost $0.004 per 10,000 transactions after.

    For the B2 customers, Backblaze also offers mailed physical devices instead of restoring via download. This will cost you $99 for a USB flash drive with 256GB capacity and $189 for an 8TB external hard drive.

    The Backblaze B2 costs significantly lower than its major competitors the likes of Google Cloud Storage, Microsoft Azure, and Amazon S3 (previously known as Amazon Cloud Storage).

    The cloud storage pricing for these giants comes in at 320 – 260 percent more costly than that of Backblaze. In addition, the download costs for these three solutions are 400 – 700 percent higher per GB of data than Backblaze.

    Why is it so cheap?

    With the ability to backup unlimited data at a lower price point, some people might be doubtful of the quality of service. However, the reason for this is that most Backblaze users only backup a relatively small amount of data, despite it being unlimited.

    Therefore, Backblaze can offer unlimited data to power users at a cheaper cost since the overall average cost per computer stays low.

    So, if you are looking for a cheap way to back up your data and don’t mind buying a new license per device, then Backblaze is an excellent option.

  • Negative Impact Of Data Breaches & How To Protect Your Business

    Negative Impact Of Data Breaches & How To Protect Your Business

    Collecting data is an important part of every business that operates in the modern world. Protecting said data is even more significant. You certainly want to keep your customers’ information safe, especially if they are inputting their credit card numbers and similar data.

    This is why data breaches, as explained on this website, are probably the worst nightmare of every single company out there. If you leave the information vulnerable, you are basically putting a target on your back. That can lead to some rather unpleasant attacks, which will ultimately affect both you and your customers.

    People who are not that informed about data breaches might not be aware of the dangers of such a situation. If you haven’t had to worry about this in the past, then you are either quite lucky, or you have done everything it takes to be properly protected. Whatever the case might be, you most certainly don’t want to worry about this in the future either.

    Well, if you don’t ever want to face those unpleasant and dangerous situations, you will need to protect your business against data breaches. Before we get to explaining how to do that, though, let us first check out why these attacks are dangerous and how they can impact your company negatively. Here we go.

    Security

    1. Financial nightmare

    First things first, you have to understand that data breaches are a financial nightmare. Regardless of the size of your customer database, exposing their confidential information can be extremely expensive for your business. There are quite a lot of factors that make it expensive.

    Here’s what these breaches actually are, in case you aren’t sure you understand everything: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/reform/rules-business-and-organisations/obligations/what-data-breach-and-what-do-we-have-do-case-data-breach_en.

    As I was saying, there are a lot of factors that make these attacks expensive. For starters, there are regulatory fines and legal fees that you would have to pay. Then, there are also expenses related to improving your security after a breach, as well as PR expenses that will occur in your effort to save your reputation.

    On top of it all, the revenue you will lose is unmeasurable and it is actually the biggest hit that your business will have to deal with. A certain portion of customers is bound to take their business elsewhere in the event of a data breach. Simply said, they’ll lose trust in you and they’ll stop using your services.

    2. Brand reputation

    I have briefly mentioned this above, but it definitely deserves some more attention. Businesses depend on their reputation. If your brand is recognized as ill-reputed, you are highly unlikely to get many customers. After all, nobody is going is going to choose ill-reputed companies over reputable ones.

    Date breaches can seriously affect the reputation of your brand in a negative way. No matter how hard you have tried to make sure that you have a stellar reputation, one issue with information security can undo it all. Consequently, your whole business will suffer and you will hardly, if at all, be able to restore your previous brand reputation. That’s why using the right IT services to protect you is of utmost importance, but we’ll get to that later.

    3. Consumer trust

    Your customers will provide you with their personal information, such as phone numbers, addresses and credit card info, and they will expect you to keep the info safe and private. As long as no breaches occur, they will keep trusting you. Consequently, they will keep using your products and services.

    If, however, you end up dealing with a data breach, you will not only lose revenue as mentioned above, but you will also lose customers, since consumer trust will certainly reach an all-time low. Recovering from that is rather difficult and it is sometimes even impossible, especially when smaller and newly established businesses are in question.

    Developer

    How To Prevent Breaches

    Now that you understand just how important it is to protect your information against any possible attacks, thefts and dangers, you will probably want to ensure that nothing like that happens. When you become aware of the dangerous after-effects of data breaches (such as those explained on this useful source), you become all the more interested in safeguarding all the information you possess. The only question is how you can do that.

    Well, there are quite a few methods that work towards protecting the information, but here’s the most important thing you need to know. If you want to make sure that every single piece of data is perfectly safe, you will need to hire an IT specialist that could take care of all your technological needs. Without the right professional on your side, you will hardly be able to achieve the goal of protecting the information.

    That basically means that you will have to find the right company that works in this field and entrust their experts with your technological needs. Now, the only thing is, you’ll need to be pretty careful when choosing those companies. That’s not because there aren’t a lot of companies offering the services, but specifically because there are.

    As the risks connected to data breaches have been made clear, I am sure that you will want to search for the right companies to hire right away. That’s a pretty great decision. Yet, as I have mentioned, you will have to be careful, which means that you will need to know exactly what it is that you should take into consideration in order to find the right IT company for you. If you are still unaware of the risks of these attacks, you can find out more at https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/data-protection-advice-for-small-organisations/understanding-and-assessing-risk-in-personal-data-breaches/.

    Basically, the most important thing to take into account is the reputation of the companies you decide to work with. In addition to that, you should also check how experienced specific providers are. Those are the two most important elements to keep in mind when trying to decide which IT expert to hire, so make sure you check that before making your decision.

  • The Importance of Business Cybersecurity in 2021

    The Importance of Business Cybersecurity in 2021

    As a business company, you don’t have the luxury of deciding whether you should implement cybersecurity systems, tools, audits, contact a cybersecurity expert such as Cytelligence, or relevant policies. In simple words, it isn’t a question of “should” anymore. On the other hand, it has become mandatory. Since we live in a digital era, cyberattacks can happen anytime and to anybody. While it is possible to remain secure from potential cyber threats, there are several strategies a business organization can implement to ensure cybersecurity optimization.

    Creating Cyber Awareness

    Many hackers and attackers get successful when an employee or an internet user makes a web security mistake. The mistake might be committed due to ignorance or a lack of knowledge of observing and practicing the best security practiced while utilizing IT assets. By creating cyber awareness and providing your employees with due training on cybersecurity, you can significantly minimize the probability of cyber hacks.

    While you provide your employees with the mandatory training on cyber awareness, you can start with the practice of creating and managing passwords. Passwords are the most direct form of defense against potential hackers. However, in case of mismanagement, they can also lead to a gateway for potential hackers to knack through your system. Encourage your employees to create strong passwords that are difficult to crack.

    You can also create cyber awareness by training your employees against phishing attacks in which emails are utilized that contain malicious links and attachments. Employees need to be made aware of how to spot spam and fake emails.

    Safeguarding Data Leaks

    One of the greatest threats faced by business companies is data leaks. Irrevocable damages are caused by data leaks, which can damage your company on a national and global level. Not to mention that the loss of a large clientele and trust can cause unrecoverable damage to your company. As a business company, you store confidential employee and client data along with other crucial company data, such as finances, objectives, strategic directions, intellectual properties, etc. In the case of data leaks, you can lose confidential information that can have severe consequences for your business.

    One way of preventing data leaks is by delimiting the data accessibility of users. In other words, refrain from sharing customer and employee profiles in public domains such as social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Accessibility to sensitive data should be granted to authorized individuals (specific numbers of employees/ managers/ superintends) only while ensuring that they adhere to the company’s policies that control how such confidential data is handled.

    Safeguarding Against Ransomware Attacks

    Ransomware attacks are one of the topmost threats that business owners have to deal with. A ransomware attack occurs when a cybercriminal encrypts the data of IT assets and victims and demands payments/ ransom to provide the decryption keys. Mostly, the data stored in physical computers are at a greater risk of ransomware attacks that target computer data stored in the cloud.

    For safeguarding your business against ransomware attacks, ensure that your employees have multiple backups while storing the data in separate and secure locations. Suppose an attacker encrypts some of the data stored in a physical work computer. You can still retrieve the data from different backups and go on with the organizational operations. Usually, cloud backups should suffice. However, these can sometimes turn out to be unavailable. Therefore, you must ensure that all backups are replicated in locally available devices and gadgets, such as a USB.

    You can also use antiviruses and trusted firewalls, so your business can stay safeguarded against ransomware attacks. Don’t forget to keep your antivirus products updated according to the latest security definitions.

  • Why Nord VPN Is The Best VPN For Android

    Why Nord VPN Is The Best VPN For Android

    Although there are many different VPN services currently available to users looking for one, such as Express VPN, Cyber Ghost, IP Vanish, and Private VPN, it is Nord VPN that is the best of the lot. For another view click for the top vpn for android devices.

    Thanks to it being super affordable to many individuals and having many different features, it really is a cut above the rest of the competition that is out there right now. This also makes it appealing to both first time users of VPNs, as well as more experienced elitists.

    The mobile interface of Nord VPN is really impressive in how easy to use it is, whilst also being really attractive. Not only is it easy to use but it is easy to install also and with a single subscription to the service you are able to connect as many as 6 different mobile devices that can all be used simultaneously. Should you need to connect any more devices, that can be done providing that you have a router that is supported.

    Privacy

    Nord VPN does not log any of your online activity so you can rest assured that everything that you do whilst connected to their service is kept fully anonymous. The security that they used is of the highest quality, super reliable, and fully compatible with any and all Android devices.

    Unique features

    There are some unique features that this particular VPN has that most others do not. This includes Cyber Sec, Double VPN, and Onion technology. The app also comes with a built in advert blocker, which lets users browse the Internet freely and without using as much data.

    Large network of servers

    Boasting more than 5,000 servers that are located in almost 60 different countries throughout the world, you should never experience any issues with the speed of the connection. In most tests, download speeds of around 78 Megabits per second (Mbps) are experienced.

    Streaming with Nord VPN

    With Nord VPN you are easily able to fully unlock streaming services, such as BBC iPlayer, Hulu, Kodi, Amazon Prime, and Netflix, so that you can access all of their content, regardless what country you are based in.

    Support

    If / when you ever experience any issues with the service, you are able to contact the company via their live 24 / 7 chat feature or via email. They also provide you with answers to many of their user’s frequently asked questions (FAQs) so that you can resolve the issue yourself with the need to ever contact their customer service team.

    Although the VPN service is affordably priced, as previously mentioned, it does not, unlike many others, come with a free trial and so you are not able to test it out before purchasing a subscription. However, this is the only negative that we found when using it.

  • What to Know If You Want to Get a French VPN

    What to Know If You Want to Get a French VPN

    VPNs are beneficial in more than one scenario. This is why not only tech-oriented people should use them. They are useful in cases of wanting to watch USA Netflix in France, they offer you protection over public networks and give you the anonymity you need while surfing the web.

    What is a VPN?

    VPN comes from Virtual Private Network. This private network is meant to create a secure connection over home networks and also public networks – those in malls, cafés, restaurants or hotels. What a VPN does is that it routes your traffic to other, specialized servers. You can read more on the subject of VPN types right here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_network.

    In this way, they get to encrypt your data, guaranteeing to protect you from attacks. VPNs are different and come in many categories. In this way, they provide the users with exactly what they need – be it protection or anonymity.

    Decide why you need a VPN

    As I stated before, there are many types of VPNs. This is why before purchasing one you should know exactly why you need it.

    To watch more content

    This is probably one of the most common reasons for using a VPN – you simply want to watch that Netflix TV series that is only streaming in the USA. With a VPN, you can do that in France. But it’s not only for Netflix. This idea of more content also applies to YouTube, for example. There are videos that are available only in some countries, but with a VPN you will be able to watch everything posted on YouTube, without having to worry about the fact that you might get restrictions. If you want to see more situations when a VPN is godsent, you can go through this article.

    To buy cheaper

    This one might sound strange, but it is true. Just think about it. Let’s say that you are trying to buy your favorite perfume and in France, it’s way more expensive than in Italy. You can use the VPN to make it seem that you are from Italy and thus benefit from the lower price.

    To protect data when in a public place

    Imagine that you are waiting for your girlfriend to have dinner together at your favorite restaurant. In the meantime, you access your Facebook account, maybe even check your bank account. If you are using the restaurant’s Wi-Fi to do that, another person who is connected can steal important private information.

    In order to prevent that from happening, you can use a VPN and make sure that you are safe. This gets us the answer to your question: yes, you can also use a VPN on a phone. Now, there are a lot of things that a VPN can do, but there are some things that they can’t do.

    How to choose the best VPN

    Now that you know what you need the VPN for, there are other things you should take into consideration before buying one. The first idea for the non-tech savvy ones is to pick a VPN with a user-friendly interface. While those who love technology cannot wait to get their hands on a new toy and discover all its features, there are those who do not know how to configure a VPN. For those, there are user-friendly platforms and even VPNs with a virtual setup.

    Apart from being user-friendly, a good VPN must come with good customer support. You never know when you might use some help, so it’s good to have someone specialized around anytime. You can discover here more insights on how to pick the best VPN: https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-choose-the-vpn-thats-right-for-you/.

    How to get a French VPN

    There are some steps you should follow when getting a VPN in France. First, you should choose the top service. This one should offer you both French and international servers, great performance and privacy. Then, just like any other purchase, you have to go to the provider’s website and create an account. Then comes the most complex part of them all – you should download and install the app on your device. If you purchased one with a user-friendly interface, you do not have to worry.

    Last, but not least, launch the VPN, then choose a French server and connect. Now you will be able to enjoy all the benefits of surfing the web freely, without having to worry about hacks. This is a good article on how to get the best VPNs when in France.

    Are VPNs legal in France?

    The issue of lawfulness in the case of VPN usage is very interesting to follow. To begin with, you should know that there are countries where using VPNs is illegal, but fortunately, France is not one of them. So, you can go purchase the VPN you wanted without worrying.

    Anyway, there is a limit to using a VPN, no matter the country you are in. It’s one thing to use it to make sure that nobody is reading your e-mail, but any form of illegal usage will be punished accordingly. If you are interested in the legality of VPN usage around the world, you can read more about it here: https://www.comparitech.com/vpn/where-are-vpns-legal-banned/.

    There are numerous reasons for purchasing a VPN. You could be using it to be able to watch Netflix from another country, buy cheaper plane tickets or keep your data safe from hacking. Whatever the reason, buying a VPN will definitely improve your Internet user experience.

  • Credential Stuffing is a Serious Issue Made More Popular by the Dark Web

    Credential Stuffing is a Serious Issue Made More Popular by the Dark Web

    Account takeover is one form of identity theft. Data breaches allow threat actors to steal credentials and then take over accounts for monetary gain. This creates a problem for businesses as well as consumers.

    SpyCloud offers protection by preventing account takeovers. They essentially do this through monitoring login credentials and alerting account holders when their credentials are breached.

    How security breaches occur

    First, a hacker will hack into a site and steal login credentials of account holders. This generally includes email addresses, usernames, and passwords.

    The Linkedin security breach of 2012 is one example of this. Over 160 million accounts had their login credentials stolen. An even larger breach involved the company Exactis, in which 340 million records were breached. Information included email addresses, physical addresses, and phone numbers.

    Data for sale

    Once the hacker has obtained these login credentials and potentially other personal information, they sell it online. The Dark Web offers much more anonymity, allowing lots of illegal activities to take place.

    The Dark Web is part of the World Wide Web. However, you won’t find these sites by doing a Google search. Instead, the Dark Web uses a Tor browser. Everything is anonymous and encrypted, with most transactions occurring through bitcoin to maintain anonymity.

    It’s easy to see why the Dark Web is seen as the place to sell information obtained from data breaches. Login credentials are compiled into lists, known as combo lists. These lists are then sold either through the dark web or the internet.

    Credential stuffing

    Given the number of accounts and passwords that people are expected to remember today, it’s not surprising that many people use the same login information for multiple sites.

    Credential stuffing was once something that had to be performed manually. If you wanted to find out if someone’s Paypal login credentials were the same as Linked In, for example, you would have to go to Paypal and enter the information in.

    However, now there are tools that essentially perform the attempts for you. You import the combo list file, and the program will test all the login credentials on many other sites.

    About 2% of credential stuffing attempts are successful. However, the sheer amount of data that can be obtained and the relative ease of credential stuffing with these programs makes it very lucrative.

    Account takeovers

    Once the criminal has found an account that can be logged into with the login credentials they purchased, they have access to the account. They can then use the account for a few purposes.

    First, they can use the account to gain even more personal information. This could include physical addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, or driver’s license numbers.

    Second, and more commonly, they can use the account for some type of financial gain. They may be able to make purchases on the site or transfer funds to their account.

    Other types of accounts are targeted as well. Services like Netflix and companies that offer loyalty programs and points are sometimes targeted.

    Cost to businesses

    Its estimated that credential stuffing costs businesses $6 million dollars each year. Unfortunately, only 30% of companies have taken steps to prevent account takeovers due to credential stuffing.

    This is likely because most people believe that the steps needed to prevent these types of attacks inconvenience legitimate users. In fact, 70% of people within organizations believe that taking steps to stop these attacks negatively affect the experience of legitimate users.

    Preventing account takeovers

    Spycloud uses a relatively simple system to prevent account takeovers. It essentially monitors login credentials. If these login credentials have been compromised in a breach, it will notify the account holder when they attempt to login.

    Instead of simply requiring them to change their password, it sends a reset password link to their email address. This is done in case the person attempting to login is the criminal instead of the account holder.

    Account takeovers are a big problem for consumers and businesses. Considering the ease and potential financial gain for criminals, it is also a problem that is going to be around for the foreseeable future. However, preventative measures can prevent account takeovers, keeping businesses and consumers safe.