.ry year I am touched by the ceremonies honoring the heroes who were a part of the D-Day military campaign against Hitler. This year marked 77 years since the June 6 Allied invasion of France. We were fighting on foreign shores to protect our treasured way of life at home. I always take a moment to re-read Winston Churchill’s address to Parliament delivered June 4, 1940, as well. “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

We Need To Regain That Spirit

There was a very sobering segment on CBS Sixty Minutes about the recent ransomware attacks on first a major fuel supply chain (Colonial Pipeline,) and most recently on a food supply chain (JBS meatpacking.) It concluded with a question about the possibility that hackers would soon be attacking individuals like you and me through our cell phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops. The expert affirmed that hackers can just as easily invade your personal devices, lock them up, and demand ransom money to release back your contacts, photos, music, movies, emails—whatever you keep in your electronic storage. Just hearing those words out loud makes my blood boil, and I am ready to fight hackers on the beaches, in the fields and in the streets, etc., and to never surrender.

You, Too, Can Fight The War Against Hackers

According to Axios’ Felix Salmon, as much as half of the unemployment funds paid out by the government over the last year may have been stolen through fraud. Some estimate that amount could be as high as $400 billion. Some 70% of that money probably ended up outside the country and in the hands of foreign crime syndicates. Bad actors will steal personal information and use it to impersonate unemployment claimants. Software to perpetrate this type of fraud can now be obtained from the dark web. This is a digital war to steal from ordinary people as well as wealthy corporations.

Start By Using 2-Factor Authentication

Yes—I’m back to the enormous importance of 2FA. This is the protocol that protects your logins by requiring not only your username and password but also a code-of-the-moment that you must put in to authentic yourself as the correct user. Yes, it is an extra step. But also yes—it can save you from paying to retrieve your data from scammers. The other preventive protocol I endorse is using a password management app. This app is not only a vault for passwords, it generates and assigns passwords that are hard to guess. Some apps even have programs that allow you to program how often to generate new passwords for your most-used accounts.

It Is So Worth Your Time To Learn About 2FA And Password Management Apps

Please take a moment to research how these two protocols can help you defend against hackers and fraud. As individuals, we can fight to keep what is ours digitally. Your IT management team can protect your data at work, but because you connect from your personal devices, you need to be responsible for protecting your company’s network from your end as well. If you have questions about all this, give us a call at Aptica. We are patriots in the fight against illegal raids of proprietary information.

Jason Newburg, 260.243.5100, ext 2101, is the founder and owner of Aptica LLC. This IT management and support company has been serving small to medium-sized businesses for 19 years in the region that includes Angola, South Bend, and Fort Wayne, IN, Battle Creek, MI, and Toledo OH.