Should i worry about hackers

Many email providers and social media websites allow users to sign up for an email or text alert when your account is accessed from a new device or unusual location.

These email or text alerts can quickly notify you when an unauthorized person accesses your account and can help minimize the amount of time an unauthorized user has access to your information.

If you receive such an alert, login to your account immediately and change the password. If your computer or other device is hacked, disconnect it from the Internet and have it looked at and repaired by a trusted specialist.

Be cautious when calling telephone numbers for technical support specialists that you find online. It is often best to take the device to a physical repair shop, rather than trying to find a technician online. If you call a technician online, be sure to research the company and its phone number to be sure it is legitimate.

Change your passwords. After getting a device repaired or cleaned of viruses, you should change all the passwords for any accounts you accessed using the device. The malicious software that was removed from your computer may have transmitted your passwords to an attacker, granting the hacker easy access to your information.

Similarly, if one of your online accounts has been hacked, be sure to change your password immediately. A hacker may also change your password, denying you access to the account. If you are unable to access your account, contact the website directly and it can assist you in restoring your account. Monitor financial accounts. If a hacked account contains financial information, contact your bank or credit card company immediately, letting it know that your account may be compromised.

Your bank or credit card company may issue you a new card or account number. Be sure to monitor activity on the account for any fraudulent transactions. In some cases, hackers may have obtained your information, but will not use it right away. If you are not issued a new card or account number, you should monitor your account for an extended period.

Notify others. When appropriate, contact your friends and family and make them aware your device or account has been hacked. Hackers may try to gain access to your email contact list, and send emails from your account. Watch out for other users. Evaluating cybersecurity for your home or business? How can hackers find me? What are things that a hacker can do to me? How will I know if I've been hacked? What can I do about computer hackers and predators? Carefully evaluate free software and file-sharing applications before downloading them.

Find the right cybersecurity solution for you. Welcome back! Can you imagine your smart television or a fridge acting as a weapon against you in your own home? In October of , one of the largest Internet outages in US history took place. The origin of this attack was that from an IoT botnet. As a result, a vast portion of Internet websites was gone in the United States. Unfortunately, there are no current regulations to prevent the IoT from becoming a digital weapon of mass destruction.

Your online reputation plays just as vital of a role for success as the real world. As more people are using search engines to find local businesses, the website is important in attracting attention. When the site is compromised and removed from the web, people will form a negative opinion about the organization. If a search engine tries to crawl your pages and the site is inaccessible because of a hack attack, it can begin to score poorly in search results.

People want to shop for goods now, and most will simply go to a competing outlet to find those products. Very few customers will wait for the website to become live again, which hurts your overall bottom line.

In , a pair of hackers demonstrated how easy it is to hijack a vehicle remotely. As a result, Chrysler recalled 1. Unfortunately, this is just the tip of a very large, and very frightening, iceberg. Can you imagine driving down the highway and the car suddenly veering into oncoming traffic?

What about if it suddenly accelerates and smashes into the car in front of you? Scenarios like these are not as unlikely as many might think. Because of the integration of computer networking within a vehicle and its access to the Internet, things like these can easily be accomplished by the right people.

How smart is your home? The researchers at the University of Michigan show just how easy it is to gain access to the front door without touching a thing. The old days when crooks had to use thin metal picks to open a lock are fading away. Now all it takes is the right malware app to gain entry.

Thermostats, smart televisions, web cams and more within the home all have potential to work against you. While some of these attacks are nothing more than a nuisance, consider how much damage a hacked appliance can cause to your utility bills. Even your login information for services such as Netflix or Hulu can be stolen from smart TVs.

A lot of business owners move a great deal of their information and procedures to the website. Arguably the most effective thing you can do to protect your online accounts is turning on multi-factor, or two-factor, authentication for as many of your accounts as possible. The method uses a secondary piece of information — often a code generated by an app or sent via SMS — alongside a password.

This secondary piece of information helps to prove it is really you trying to log-in as the codes are often accessed on the phone in your pocket. Messaging apps such as WhatsApp, social media including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and your email accounts. Not all forms of multi-factor authentication are equal though. Code generating apps are considered more secure than getting codes via SMS and beyond this physical security keys provide an even more robust layer of protection.

All the passwords you use for your online accounts should be strong and unique. What this really means is they should be long, include a mixture of different character types and not be used across multiple websites.

The best way to do this is by using a password manager. Password managers create strong passwords for you and store them securely. From our testing of the best password managers our there, we recommend trying out LastPass or KeePass. Quickly clicking can be your worst enemy.