IV. Thou shalt always backup thy data and regularly check its integrity.

Summary: In conjunction with the first, second and third commandments … are you seeing a pattern here? By following each of these simple commandments, you are providing additional layers of defence against the evil doers. This is what security experts refer to as Defence-in-Depth. The more precautions you take, the more difficult it makes life…

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III. Thou shalt have a firewall in place on thine Desktop/Laptop as well as thine internet connection.

Summary: In conjunction with the first and second commandments, having a Firewall in place on your desktop or laptop improves your security posture as it adds another layer of protection in the fight against the evil doers. It is by no means a perfect solution on its own, as a poorly configured firewall would offer…

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II – Thou shalt have Anti-virus software installed, updated and active.

Summary: In conjunction with the first commandment, having Anti-Virus software installed, updated and active on your desktop, laptop or mobile device dramatically improves your security posture. This adds another layer of protection in the fight against the bad guys.  Don’t for one second think that just having Anti-Virus on your device will give you enough…

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I – Thou shalt keep all of thy software and apps up-to-date with automatic updates.

Summary This is the first commandment for a reason. It is probably the number 1 step to reducing your risk of being compromised by hackers or malware. The reason for this is because hackers discover vulnerabilities in applications that are widely used (web browsers, e-mail clients, office productivity suites, etc.) and exploit these vulnerabilities to…

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Phishing by spreadsheet?

Evil spreadsheet phishing attempt

So you receive an unexpected e-mail from a stranger, with the subject of “Important Notice” and it contains an attachment. If you’ve received L2 Cyber Security Solutions Security Awareness Training, then you consign this phishing e-mail to junk/spam and move on with your life. However, if you do open the file, you get what looks…

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Sneaky Facebook phishing attack.

Phishing Subject Lines

I became aware of this really sneaky attempt by hackers to steal people’s Facebook ID and password recently. This is known as phishing and it’s quite clever and I must admit that I could quite easily have fallen victim to it, had I not read the article. I’ve put a link to the full article…

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Internet Security Awareness and Safety Training

Security Awareness Training

Justification: Did you know that malicious software gets past commercial, enterprise grade anti-virus and e-mail filtering products on a worryingly regular basis? Firewalls and Anti-virus packages lure people into a false sense of security. While they do provide protection up to a point, if somebody opens an e-mail attachment that contains new malicious software, these…

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