Are you safe from danger? For the most part, yes. Fearsome threats are statistically decreasing across the globe. However, what tends to be perceived as the scariest stuff out there is often the least likely to ever happen. The result is an array of more common threats which go unnoticed.
As far as we can tell, the following take the top spots for overlooked security threats in 2016:
The most common malicious threats to data security are well known. Hacking, ransomware, and identity theft are all pretty familiar concepts. However, these are not the only potential dangers facing sensitive digital information.
In the event a local drive is compromised, most folks will wind up turning to the professionals. Yet do they consider the security standards beforehand? Finding a trusted hard drive recovery service is critical. Otherwise, who knows who will have access to your seemingly lost data?
Thus, failure to find a secure place to salvage data is the lead off security thought being overlooked in 2016.
The advent of live streaming, affordable security cameras synced to smartphones and other mobile devices seem like wonderful tools for ensuring security. For many criminal threats out there, they do a great job as a deterrence, this is true.
However, the trade off is the technology is itself a portal for malicious activity. The broadcasting of live video footage from within property and on its outsides, however encrypted it may be, can be accessed by a determined enough entity. The consequences are wide, ranging from voyeuristic predation on your family to knowing when nobody is home, to knowing when people are there.
This trade-off between live footage security and the way in which this technology can be exploited takes the number two spot for overlooked security threat of 2016.
Then there is social media. We all use it these days, from Baby Boomers to Generation Z. Most of us access our Facebook profiles and Twitter feeds from multiple devices. This opens up multiple doors for unauthorized users to access these accounts.
So what, you may wonder, what’s ultimately so bad about that besides a change of password and deleting spam? It depends, but a worthy enough target will incite a motivated hacker to carefully analyze accessible accounts in digital silence, scanning for every available clue as to someone’s finances and personal information.
The lack of overt concern for social media security by the majority of social media users earns it third place for overlooked security risks of 2016.
And finally, the fourth most overlooked security risk of 2016 is the threat posed by the Internet of Things. The IoT is the impending world where everything from our toasters to our automobiles are connected to the web and talking to one another. This year is anticipated to see tremendous growth in the IoT sector, with security measures struggling to catch up.
The threat is one wherein one web-connected, Wi Fi enabled product is used as a backdoor into an entire network of devices synced to a singular system. All it takes is for the “smart lamp” to be hacked for someone to sneak onto your desktop.
We aren’t in the business of spreading unnecessary fear. The world is far safer and less dangerous than most of us think. Yet there will always be security risks out there, and the most common and contagious tactics for criminals to succeed tend to be the ones which get overlooked by the common individual. 2016 has its share, be advised to take preventative action.