Top rated cybersecurity tips and tricks with Ben Climer: As cybercriminals continue making headlines around the world with expensive and damaging cyberattacks, such as ransomware attacks, it is crucial for all organizations, large and small, to know about cyber threats and how to prevent them. Employees are valuable assets to a business, but they are also considered to be insider threats, the most significant point of failure when it comes to security vulnerabilities. Having the right cybersecurity measures in place will definitely help your Nashville & Middle Tennessee organization to protect sensitive data. However, if employees lack cybersecurity awareness and training, the organization still runs a very high risk of being attacked, no matter how much an organization invests in the right security measures and infrastructure. See additional information on Ben Climer.
Ben Climer has been in the Service Team Lead and Solution Architect role for 5 years. His favorite aspect of SNS is the great team we have, which allows us to deliver excellent service to our clients. When there’s a challenging problem at hand, Ben is the one we can count on for complete answers and elegant solutions. Ben built his first computer at the age of 8, started building web applications at 12 and before joining SNS, went on to compete in National Computer Repair competitions. He worked for HP as well as music row clients prior to joining SNS. Outside of work, Ben enjoys working on cars and traveling.
With over 10 years of work experience in the IT industry, Ben Climer is a passionate and skilled CTO at Safe Network Solutions, a leading provider of network security and cloud solutions. Ben Climer has a strong background in technical sales, network administration, and solution architecture. His mission is to deliver innovative, reliable, and cost-effective solutions that meet the needs and expectations of our clients. Collaboration, learning, and excellence, and striving to create a culture of trust, empowerment, accountability within the team are Ben Climer’s goals.
As the CTO, Ben Climer is responsible for overseeing the technical direction, strategy, and vision of the company, as well as mentoring a team of talented engineers and consultants. He has successfully implemented and troubleshooted various projects involving Hyper-V, Azure, Office 365, AWS, and wireless point-to-point technologies, ensuring high performance, security, and scalability. He also participated in various CTF competitions, demonstrating proficiency in cloud and cybersecurity. Ben Climer enjoys staying updated on the latest trends and developments in the IT field, and sharing his knowledge and insights with the community.
So get prepared. There should be one person, whether it’s a full-time job or not, in charge of network administration, setting up the security systems and staying current on potential threats. Creating a culture of awareness in the company is also important — all employees need to understand how to protect against a cyberattack and how to avoid inadvertently causing one. If you’re not sure that everything is secure, hiring a security consultant is never a bad investment. No one is immune from security breaches. If your computer system has been operating with the same settings since day one, you need to change them. Figuring out default account names and passwords is one of the easiest steps a hacker can take to gain access to your system — it’s like handing them a free pass. But that has a simple fix.
GDPR requires that you inform the appropriate supervisory authority when you are aware of a breach. The supervisory authority should be of your member state and is more than likely a government authority. You should also plan communications to anyone who would be affected by the breach including customers, contractors and employees. Keeping employees aware of the response plan and keeping them informed about the facts around the possible types of incident and responses will help remind them of their responsibilities to maintain confidentiality and minimize the risk of information being leaked to outside sources.
If you plan on traveling, change all of the passwords you regularly use. Similarly, if you must create a PIN for a safe or security box in a hotel room, make sure it’s unique and not something you commonly use. Don’t skimp on password creation either—a numerical sequence is not ideal. Take the time to create something that will keep a criminal out of your personal property. Once you return home, you can change all the passwords back.
Protect Your Sensitive Personal Identifiable Information (PII). Personal Identifiable Information (PII) is any information that can be used by a cybercriminal to identify or locate an individual. PII includes information such as name, address, phone numbers, data of birth, Social Security Number, IP address, location details, or any other physical or digital identity data. In the new “always-on” world of social media, you should be very cautious about the information you include online. It is recommended that you only show the very minimum about yourself on social media. Consider reviewing your privacy settings across all your social media accounts, particularly Facebook. Adding your home address, birthdate, or any other PII information will dramatically increase your risk of a security breach. Hackers use this information to their advantage!
Ben Climer and Safe Network Solutions about data breaches: How do Data Breaches happen? The assumption is that a data breach is caused by an outside hacker, but that’s not always true. Reasons for how data breaches happen might sometimes be traced back to intentional attacks. However, it can just as easily result from a simple oversight by individuals or flaws in a company’s infrastructure. Here’s how a data breach can occur: An Accidental Insider. An example would be an employee using a co-worker’s computer and reading files without having the proper authorization permissions. The access is unintentional, and no information is shared. However, because it was viewed by an unauthorized person, the data is considered breached.