Every business knows the importance of being protected from hackers and spam, but new data shows that businesses are more vulnerable than they may think.
Smartphones, desktops and laptops are devices which first come to mind when securely protecting your business, but what if someone told you that your business could now be hacked through certain household devices?
Devices such as kitchen appliances, home media systems and web-connected televisions are just some of the 100,000 devices which have recently been used to take part in a spam campaign which occurred between 23rd December and 6th January 2014. This campaign sent about 750,000 junk mail messages in total.
David Knight, the general manager of security firm ProofPoint’s information security division stated that all of the 100,000 devices which were hacked were:
Poorly protected at best and consumers have virtually no way to detect or fix infections when they do occur.
Although, only 25% of all the messages sent were to Internet of Things products, the remaining 75% passed through laptops, desktops and smartphones.
This, meaning that many important devices are potentially accessible by hackers and spam. In order to resolve this issue, businesses must increase their online security.
How to securely protect your device
There are a lot of different ways to improve security on devices. For a business especially, it is essential to protect not only their own data, but the data of their customers.
In order to do this, a business should have antivirus and antispam software. This would prevent any unwanted spam emails reaching any device and causing a significant reduction in productivity.
Spam also has the potential to use a large amount of your business’s internet, therefore it is more vital than ever to increase your security to prevent a similar spam campaign as mentioned above effecting your business.
There has also been an increase in businesses purchasing email encryption to protect their devices further. This will automatically protect sensitive data such as credit card details or private emails sent by a customer and ensure that hackers will not be able to access any important data which is sent through email.
Related links:
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