If you're a freelancer or independent developer, designer, content manager and begin start-up, consisting of two people, you can not even consider himself a small business.
But these clients on your laptop and the client-bank to the iPhone make you perfectly visible from the target for hackers - and lawyers.
For Neal O'Farrell, executive director of nonprofit Identity Theft Council, retreating from an explanation of security issues that you're too small - the most stupid.
O'Farrell gave a lecture on "The hackers are - why small business is big purpose, or you have something to lose" at the conference Small Business Week in San Francisco.
His goal? Scared to death of all the conference participants.
Neal O'Farrell writes on the site nealofarrell.com: «In the United States in the last year there were more data loss than people, more cases of identity theft than all other crimes put together."
If you do not shifruesh all devices, it seems you're asking for trouble.
"You've got to wake up and defend themselves, even if you use Mac», - he said. Hackers attacked by automatic bots and the simplicity with which you sinhroniziruesh contact information between your laptop and smartphone and managed with his bank account makes the data vulnerable.
"I do not use banking applications on my phone" - explains O'Farrell, who worked on the first system to protect the Irish network of ATMs. "Eight out of ten mobile banking applications have vulnerabilities, but Apple and the banks do not want you to know that. I'll wait another 20 years before siganu in this pond. "
The prevailing idea is that Apple devices are less vulnerable to cracking, the more irrelevant - largely thanks to the ever growing popularity of iPhone and iPad. "Hackers are going after the mob. We see growth of 400% of attacks on Android. This does not mean that the system is more vulnerable, but they are oriented to the general user. "
Neil, an Irishman by birth, became an expert on security 30 years ago and he has advised companies such as Toyota, Merrill Lynch, Cost Plus World Market and the Bulgarian government.
O'Farrell refers to the hundreds of cases of burglary, facing his organization every month. A small company gradually lost half a million dollars after two of its employees clicked on a fake letter from the UPS, the bank launched the Trojan, the restaurant has lost 200,000 on the card skimmer.
Police investigating less than 1% of such crimes. "It's almost nerassleduemye crime" - said the expert. "If you live in San Francisco, and your banking or personal details stolen and used in another district, the cops will not investigate it. Too much paperwork. "
And here's the thing: you may not have office staff, or anything that your grandmother relates to the business to make a hell of an expensive headache.
Imagine that your laptop is stolen from him just merged all the data in the repair, or because you have not cleaned your hard disk before selling. "My biggest fear is not hackers and lawyers," - he writes. "Suppose you had a thousand customers for all the time. When you sell or lose your computer or anything else happens, you get under the federal and local laws on disclosure of personal data. " And the average cost of losses, depending on the information that is $ 200 for a single record. Sam can calculate their costs.
Is this light and bright side: there are some very low-cost scenarios and solutions that can fix it, says O'Farrell.
If we sum them, we obtain:
Take a cheap laptop for exclusive use with the online bank - no mail, Internet, etc.
Use a credit card rather than debit for all operations except withdrawing money from an ATM - "better to lose money the bank than their own."
Remove, cleanse, encrypts.
Check back post - if something seems suspicious, it is best to ask again.
Teach everyone with whom you communicate electronically, we should prefer a cautious curiosity when it comes to electronic communications.
