Protecting Personal Data

Cyber criminals don’t take a day off and neither should consumers when it comes to keeping your devices and your personal information safe. That’s the advice from North Texas cybersecurity expert Michael Moore, founder and CEO of M3 Networks.

"The most important thing to know about cybersecurity is that the attacks come from the inside, out," Moore said.

What does that mean exactly? Moore said many times we are the ones to blame for our own cybersecurity misfortune. Consumers are generally the ones who make it easy for cybercriminals to strike. Lack of training is a big part of that.

"Employees that haven’t been trained well on Ransomware. Somebody clicked a link or they had a poor password. Or something like that," Moore explained.

Simply not paying attention and clicking links from unknown email addresses could also be a big problem, Moore warned.

Another big issue are social media platforms. Websites and companies generally make public announcements when they know their customers’ information has been compromised, but what if it’s already too late?

The best defense is making a difficult password. One that has a combination of letters, numbers and symbols.

Something else to remember is your cell phone, according to Symantec, the company that produces Norton Anti-Virus software. Consumers should only download apps to their phone through approved stores. For Apple users it is the "App Store" and for Android users it's "Google Play."

Third party app stores have apps that could contain malware which could help the bad guys steal your personal information right off of your cell phone.

NBC: 

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