Tips for protecting your information and privacy against cybersecurity threats

This post is authored by Steven Meyers, security operations principal, Microsoft Cyber Defense Operations Center.

Introducing a new video on best practices from the Microsoft Cyber Defense Operations Center

In 2016, 4.2+ billion records were stolen by hackers. The number of cyberattacks and breaches in 2017 have risen 30 percent.

The business sector leads in the number of records compromised so far, with more than 7.5 million exposed records in 420 reported incidents. These cybercrimes are often intended for financial gain, such as opening a fraudulent credit card or accessing a company’s financial records. Today, a growing market exists in the dark web for selling credentials and sensitive information to other cybercriminals.

To help Protect your information and privacy against cyberthreats, the Microsoft Cyber Defense Operations Center has published a series of best practices videos that will help consumers, businesses and organizations enable a safer online environment. This video shares some of the policies and practices that can be used to better protect information and privacy inside and outside of your operational perimeters.

Protection starts with classifying information and then putting appropriate protections in place based on its value. Some information is meant to be public, some data is sensitive but not highly valued to outside entities, but some data is mission critical and/or could cause tremendous financial hardship if shared externally.

Cybersecurity technologies and policies such as multifactor authentication, the principles of least privilege access, just-in-time-and just-enough administrator access, and Microsoft’s cybersecurity products and services can help safeguard access to data and applications.

Some cybersecurity tips discussed include:

• Classifying emails and data according to their level of sensitivity
• Employing multifactor authentication for access to sensitive information
• Only providing administrator access to individuals for the time needed to complete a task
• Restricting access to only the information needed for the task
• Keeping your software up-to-date

Please take a few minutes to watch the video and share it with your colleagues, friends and family. We all need to be diligent in the face of this growing and ever-more sophisticated threat.

Also, be sure to watch part one of the video series, Protecting your identity from cybersecurity threats. Check back next week for our third video, Protecting your devices from cybersecurity threats.

Additional resources:

• Azure Information Protection
• The Top 5 Tips for Information Protection (with Dan Plastina, Microsoft Azure Security expert)
• How to set up two-step verification (Microsoft Support)
• Multifactor Authentication-Access control via Azure (for Office 365 and other SaaS apps)
• Microsoft Safety & Security Center
• Microsoft Secure
• Microsoft Security Response Center Blogs on TechNet

from Microsoft Secure Blog Staff