Tyrone Chamber members held their monthly breakfast meeting Thursday morning at The Bull Pen. Providing awareness and information regarding cyber threats was Joe Harford, founder and president of Reclamere in Tyrone. Harford warned that clicking on links in emails is a way of inviting dangers into homes and businesses. Harford said that people need to be aware that cyber security threats are real and are happening right here in the local community. Cyber attacks occur regularly, seeking people’s names, dates of birth and social security numbers. The information, he said, is valuable on the dark web and can be sold over and over again. He said that people are paid a great deal of money in other countries to steal data.
Harford said that when organizations with 25 employees or less are hit with cyber attacks that their likelihood of going out of business following a the attack goes up 50%. Harford said that many entities have equipment that is “woefully” unprotected and “woefully” old.
Harford stressed the importance of secure passwords, storing them properly in password keepers or password managers — many of which are free. Harford said that often people do not protect their passwords or do not create them to be complicated enough. For example, Harford said that many household passwords are simply “password,” and are easily compromised.
Harford also stressed the importance of paying attention and encourages everyone to “stop, think and act.” Hackers have the opportunity to get to data when people are busy, distracted and not paying attention. Harford said that most attacks are coming through e-mail, so people should be paying a great deal of attention and not clicking on links. Receiving the e-mails is not the problem, Harford said, “but once you click on a link, it’s game over.”
Along with cyber security, password managers are important, Harford said, for loved ones in the event of an emergency or unexpected loss.
Following the presentation, Chamber Director Rose Black said that she invited Harford to speak after the Chamber website was hacked and she wanted to help spread the word that the threat is real and people should always be cautious.
Harford told The Daily Herald that often what holds people back from being better prepared for cyber is uncertainty and fear. Harford advises that people make a plan for how they can improve cyber security both in homes and in businesses one step at a time. If they make small changes each month, “imagine how much better off they will be in six months,” Harford said.
Senator Judy Ward was in attendance and enjoyed the presentation. She told The Daily Herald, “The warning for every day users on the internet and how not to get scammed and for businesses that thought they were doing everything right and got caught up in a cyber security issue. It can be costly. Just some of the very simple tips that Joe brought us today will help everybody here and we pass it on too.”
Those who would like additional information or have questions regardng cyber security may contact Hartford at joseph@relamere.com.
