Attorney-General Nicola Roxon released a discussion paper this week on whether companies should be required to notify customers if the security of their personal information is compromised.
Ms Roxon said in Theage.com.au that there have been a number of high-profile online data breaches, which shows how susceptible our information can be to hackers.
This emphasises the importance of keeping your business and personal information safe online.
You could be at risk of a PR disaster if someone accesses and releases confidential information about your business or your customers.
If someone hacks into your social media accounts or website and starts releasing false information, your customers or clients may lose trust in the business. If the personal information of key members of your business is released it could ruin their career as well as the business’ reputation.
For example in June 2012 more than 6.5 million LinkedIn passwords were published on a hacker’s website. This story was published throughout the world in many publications calling on people to question the security of LinkedIn and tarnish their reputation.
The Steveology Blog has provided some great tips for creating a secure password to protect your information.
- Don’t use your name or email address because hackers can find this out easily.
- Don’t include personal information such as your birth date or street address.
- Don’t use consecutive numbers.
- Don’t use common sequences, phrases or slang terms.
- Don’t use the word password, qwerty or swear words.
- You could use numbers or characters such as @ to break up your password.
- Use different passwords for every account you have.
You can check the strength of your password on The Password Meter website.
Businesses should educate their employees on how to use safe practices online to protect their information such as creating strong passwords, setting up email filters and what dangerous links look like.
By protecting confidential information about your business online you can prevent hackers taking control of your accounts and avoid a PR disaster.
Have you experienced a PR disaster from your business information being hacked into?
Sydney Public Relations Agency, CP Communications provides specialist media, traditional and online PR strategies that get amazing results. Contact us today. For more great tips visit our website www.cpcommunications.com.au.
