Your passwords are like the lock to your house. You would not offer the keys to random people or install a simple lock that any criminal could pick easily. Any compromise to your password security could potentially hurt your credit, financial health, identity, and more.

Network devices such as laptops, tablets, or servers make it easier than ever for organizations to collaborate and accomplish work together. However, these devices, also called endpoints, also provide many potential entry points for threats such as viruses, unauthorized access, and other malicious activity.

These days, social engineering attacks are one of the top threats to your company’s cybersecurity. A recent study found that, on average, organizations get targeted by more than 700 social engineering attacks per year. This type of threat includes techniques such as phishing and ransomware, and it relies on a lack of awareness, attention, and time to assess the threat.

If you read or watch the news, then it is no surprise that companies’ electronic systems get compromised all the time, whether big or small. The biotech and life science industry is no stranger to these threats. Even with antivirus and antimalware systems in place, breaches are still possible through the vulnerable path of your employees.

Life science companies regularly deal with intellectual property and expensive lab equipment, making them an appealing target for cybercriminals. This is a major issue on two crucial fronts:

A data breach has the potential to cause reputation damage, financial ramifications, and legal liability. Any company with sensitive data or intellectual property must ensure their work is secure. Data security is an escalating issue for life sciences companies in particular: 40% of cyberattacks on life sciences companies reported to the media since 2017 took place in 2020 alone.

With the recent news that Bill Burr, who originally wrote the guidelines for government employees password polices that influenced the business world too, now regrets those complexity standards he developed businesses are now left to decide how they should handle these new standards.

NIST released a draft of its guidelines for review last year, and this summer, released the final version. It’s a four-volume document, written, as Fortune describes, “in turgid bureaucrat-speak.” We’ll save you the trouble of wading through it and highlight some of the biggest changes from the password best practices of the past.

Apple likes to cultivate a pristine image: hardware, software, and user experiences blending seamlessly together. And for the most part, image and reality are the same.

Apple products command a premium because they “just work.” Businesses owners will tell you they choose Macs — despite their higher price tags — because they’re powerful with less hassle. And the perception is that they’re more secure.

In fact, since Apple debuted Mac OS X (10.0) in 2001, the conventional wisdom has been that the operating system is nearly impenetrable to viruses and other malware due to it being built on Unix.

2017 hasn’t even reached its halfway point and already it’s been a banner year for email scammers. The hackers may be rejoicing, but if you or your company has been on the receiving end of an email-based cyberattack, it’s hardly something to celebrate.

According to the FBI, email scams have been hitting American businesses hard, to the tune of a half a billion dollars per year. And the pace doesn’t seem to be slowing for 2017.

If your company hasn’t fallen victim to an email scam this year, count yourself lucky. Up to 85 percent of organizations have suffered phishing attacks, according to one report. (Phishing is the blanket name for the most common form of email scam.)

What came to mind? If your mental image of a hacker is informed by Hollywood stereotypes and stock imagery, you thought of a shadowy figure, bathed in the green glow of multiple screens, furiously pounding out complex algorithms and arcane programming.

If only that were accurate. The truth is, the perpetrators of some of the most devastating cyber attacks of recent years relied more on charm and quick thinking than on technical wizardry.

Hackers succeed by exploiting weaknesses. And long ago, they discovered that the weakest element of most systems is the human element.

It’s easier to talk someone into giving up their password then it is to crack it through sheer computing power. And hackers are all about what’s easier.