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Summer Travel & Cyber Security
Whether you are traveling for business or pleasure, cyber security is important and essential. You should always do your best to safeguard your personal data, but business travelers should take extra precaution as both personal and business data may be at risk. Before you leave, be sure to review and apply these smart cyber security tips.
Lock Devices
Most devices (smartphones, laptops, tablets) have a security setting that enables you to lock your device using a PIN number or fingerprint ID. You should enable this on every device. In addition, you should change the PIN numbers you regularly use. Should your devices be temporarily misplaced or forgotten, this will be the first line of defense against a security breach.
Be Cautious Of Public Wi-Fi
If you are traveling abroad, the laws and regulations that govern cyber security are typically not the same as those in the United States. Although free Wi-Fi access can be very appealing, it can be particularly vulnerable to security issues.
Avoid any unencrypted Wi-Fi networks – ask the hotel about its security protocol before connecting. Be extra cautious using Internet cafes and free Wi-Fi hotspots. If you must use them, avoid accessing personal accounts or sensitive data while connected to that network.
Disable Auto-Connect
If your phone has a setting which allows your device to automatically connect to Wi-Fi networks as you pass through them, turn it off before you leave. It can be convenient when you are at home, but it is not something you should allow while traveling.
Disable Bluetooth Connectivity
Along with your Wi-Fi connectivity, you should also disable Bluetooth connectivity. Bluetooth signals can come from anywhere, and if left on, nearby assailants can connect to your phone and potentially hack into your device.
Minimize Location Sharing
When traveling, it may be tempting to share your experiences in real time on social networks. The problem with this is that it creates a security threat at home. Knowing where you are helps criminals determine that you’re not in your hotel room or at home, leaving these areas vulnerable to physical intrusion. Limit what you post online or save it until after you have returned home to minimize potential threats.
Install Anti-Virus Protection
One of the easiest and most effective ways to keep personal and company information secure while traveling is to utilize anti-virus protection. Choose a trusted brand of security and be sure to regularly update this software as new versions become available.
Update Operating Systems
Much like anti-virus software, your operating system should be kept up-to-date. This also applies to apps on your phone, especially those which you use regularly to conduct financial or personal business.
Update Passwords
Password management is ever important, so if you are going to travel, be sure to change all of the passwords you regularly use. If you must create a PIN for a safe or security box in a hotel room, make sure it’s unique and not something you commonly use. Don’t skimp on password creation either. Take the time to create something that will keep a criminal out of your personal property. Once you return home, you can changes all the passwords back.
In addition to these tips, you should also review the laws and regulations governing cyber security in each country you plan to visit. Be aware of your surroundings, networks, and devices to reduce the risk of cyber threats. Share your own cyber security tips with us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
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More Than Just Cyber Security
When running an online business, one of the most important aspects is security. Aside from protecting your company data, customers want to feel secure and know that they are safe when connecting and shopping on your website. Things like SSL and encryption are standard for any legitimate ecommerce business.
Unfortunately, small businesses with physical locations sometimes overlook the proper security measures, which can end up hurting the company in many ways.
Build confidence with your consumers by employing smart security practices with both your physical locations as well as your online presence.
Benefits Of A Secure Business
By securing your business, first and foremost, you are increasing safety for your employees and your business overall. When taking the appropriate measures, you can create a cohesive team and a sense of belonging among your staff. Applying on-premise security measures delivers the message that you value your employees and are concerned for their safety. In doing so, you are also improving job satisfaction, which can lead to employee retention.
Aside from improving employee morale, securing your business shows your customers that your staff and brand are worth protecting. Security methods also convey professionalism and help to build trust with your customers. By strengthening the legitimacy of your company, you are building a strong foundation for your business.
So how can you improve security in your business? Here are a few things you can implement to get started.
Access Control
One of the most effective ways to protect your business is to control who gets in or out. Make it harder for unauthorized guests to gain access by graduating from a simple lock and key to access control cards. They are much harder to duplicate than keys, and when someone leaves the company or you need to revoke access to one person for whatever reason, all you need to do is change the database – no need to change the locks or the entry code.
Photo ID
Adding photos ID cards or badges will help your customers clearly identify your team members, as well as promote value amongst your team. It also adds an additional layer of security in helping to identify who should and should not be on site. It may prove beneficial for businesses to invest in their own ID card printer to avoid any possible counterfeits.
Easily Identify Visitors And Contractors
If left to their own devices, visitors and contractors may pose a risk in your building. Make sure you have a check-in system as well as photo pass and color coded lanyard so that everyone on the team can easily identify who’s who. Your team should also know the protocol for when an intruder is on the premises.
Secure Networks
Although we are mainly focused on physical security, it is worth mentioning that cyber security is also of the utmost importance. These days, it has bearing on your physical security as well. Strong passwords, multi-step authentication and security from the cloud are smart and simple ways to minimize risks for your business.
Security Culture Among Team
Your team should have a strong knowledge of your security procedures. You should have security specialists analyze your business needs and assist you in creating clear, actionable policies for your employees to follow. Once implemented, these should be reviewed for all employees so that your team is on the same page and understand the company’s security policy.
Security procedures can play a crucial role in building a legitimate, successful business. What security measures do you implement to safeguard your business? Share with us on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
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Improving Cyber Security With Artificial Intelligence
The use of artificial intelligence in security systems provides more flexibility, especially with new cyber threats always emerging. Namely, machine learning has garnered much attention for its involvement and improvement of security systems.
Most people use the term “artificial intelligence” loosely these days, but it traditionally refers to the theory and development of computer systems that may perform human tasks. Machine learning is a type of AI that allows a computer to learn, grow, and change when presented with new data.
The evolution of AI can be best described in three stages. First is the basic expert system. If we used this system to help distinguish between a dog and a cat, for example, it would use a single feature such as number of teeth to make the decision. Second is the probability-based system, which evaluates different factors (ex. number of teeth, weight, size) to determine the probability (expressed as a percentage) of the object being a cat or dog. Lastly is deep learning, which uses seemingly endless amounts of labeled samples to differentiate between cats and dogs.
If we applied these to antivirus systems, you could understand how a basic expert system would be weak and need constant updating for new threats. The probability-based system would be a bit stronger, however, only so many features would prove relevant resulting in disregarded data. Deep learning seems the most promising, and a startup called Deep Instinct is looking to develop this approach for cyber security.
Within the Deep Instinct laboratory, the deep learning system is trained on all the known samples of malware, which takes about a day to complete. The process requires heavy-duty graphical processing units to analyze the data, and the end result is a trained system about a gigabyte in size. It is then reduced to about 20 megabytes and can be installed on any endpoint device (including mobile). It works to analyze any incoming threats within a few milliseconds to keep your devices safe.
To keep the system up -to-date, new malware samples are added every few months, and updates are automatically sent to the end point devices. But even if the system is not updated for months, the small brains within the end point devices remain vigilant and can detect new files. The success rate is promising and deep learning systems will likely gain more popularity over time.
While deep learning systems are great for detecting threats, they are not the best for explaining how they did it. Eureqa is a proprietary AI engine from Nutonian whose main job is to find out why things happen. It has proven very valuable for researchers and journal publications, but it also plays a role in cyber security by helping to determine the anatomy of a cyber attack.
Still, cyber security can be a tricky mess. Constant updates are necessary thanks to appearance of new threats and attacks daily. Even though you are employing security systems to protect your data, there are still vulnerabilities between updates. And during that time, hackers can use the security software to test their attacks until something breaks through, leaving numerous customers at risk.
Tailoring your cyber security approaches can help to combat this. For example, Masergy Communications is a managed networking company which uses a combination of both local and global factors to predict and prevent cyber security issues or attacks. The unique local indicators help to improve accuracy.
Acuity Solutions offers the BluVector appliance which uses machine learning for cyber threats, and also uses a local and global approach. The pre-trained engine learns what a benign code looks like, receives updates based on global data, but also engages in new learning based on the individual customer. While the global data is shared, the customer-specific data is not, creating a more unique and secure experience.
As discussed, artificial intelligence and machine learning can greatly benefit different aspects of cyber security. What are your predictions on the future of AI in security solutions? Share with us on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest!
For a wide range of security cameras and surveillance equipment, please visit SecurityCamExpert.com. To speak with a representative or request a site survey, please call 1-888-203-6294.
Cyber Security: Humans + AI
Cyber security is an ongoing problem, especially as our technology becomes a larger part of our everyday lives. Neither our efforts alone nor artificial intelligence (AI) have achieved a fool proof method. Our human-driven techniques are based on rules set by living experts, which means we miss any threats that don’t follow these rules. Machine-learning approaches, on the other hand, rely on anomaly detection, which often trigger “false positives” (nonthreats mistakenly identified as threats) that need to be checked by humans.
What if humans joined forces with AI? Researchers at MIT have been working on this concept and have produced some promising results.
AI² is a collaboration between researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and the startup company PatternEx. After three months of testing on 3.6 billion pieces of user-made data, it is said to detect 85% of attacks and reduce the number of false positives by a factor of five.
To find the most important potential problems, AI² uses machine learning first, and then shows the top events to analysts for labeling. After the analysts go through and confirm which events are actual attacks, the system incorporates this feedback into its models for the next set of data. This ongoing cycle of improvement decreases potential events and increases accuracy.
What are your thoughts on AI² and the interaction of humans and AI for cyber security measures? Share with us on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and Pinterest. You can also find us on Vine.
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