Don't Forget to Update Your Home Devices

welcome back to another episode of cappuccino chat this time we're talking about making sure we update our home electronics to keep us safe this time we're talking about keeping our home electronics updated so that we can keep our cyber security safe for both our personal lives and our business lives recently there was an article that came out that explained that Chinese hackers were using these routers switches firewalls to gain access to systems now you might be thinking why would they go about that well they know that more and more people are working from home nowadays so if they can get access to your home it's a softer Target that's not as protected as the business itself that you may or may not work for they want to use that as an entry point into the system again they know you're working from home but let's take for example the hack that happened years ago to the ring um video camera and someone hacked in and was able to talk to the home owner these types of things can happen and based upon those networks being connected to the rest of our Network can get them access to your work laptop your personal devices I.E your bank accounts and things of that nature so we need to make sure we keep these things safe now a lot of us may think of our home router and our home router may even prompt us that it's got a new firmware update and we apply it which is great but what happens when it stops notifying us at that point it's probably a signal that that router that you have at home is no longer supported and they're just not producing any updates for it so that's when it comes time to replace it we also need to make sure that we're looking at other devices that we otherwise may not look at our TVs [Music] our refrigerators other home appliances like our washer and dryers all of these devices are now being interconnected it amazes me I looked at my own home the other day and there was probably 20 some devices connected to my Wi-Fi uh between phones tablets for the kids computers TVs Apple t uh TVs um your security system that you might want to think about again all those things video doorbells all those things nowadays are are on our Network when they're on our Network they can spread throughout that Network they have visibility to the rest of the network so we need to make sure that we keep those things updated so if there are devices that we want to um that you have connected that you maybe haven't thought about in a while definitely go check into them if you've connected them to your home network either by a cable or Wireless make sure they don't need an update this goes for print printers as well I know I have a wireless printer at my house you got to check those drivers and firmwares on that as well because again if they breach that they can get in uh reminds me of a um one of the breaches for Home Depot uh back in the day was actually they got entrance via the uh heating and AC system so the heating and AC system was left unupdated but connected to the rest of the network and they used that to gain entry into the system so we need to be very careful even at home they know people do online banking nowadays uh people aren't going to the bank like they used to and they know you're doing that on your computer so again if they get on your computer odds are they're going to be able to see and or get your bank logging credential so we got to make sure that stuff's protected by two Factor authentication which I know is annoying but all all of our banks should be at least at a minimum protected by that and we want to make sure that we're not creating a hole in our businesses cyber security protection by leaving the homes unprotected so please take a look at your home devices after you see this video and make sure everything's updated and again if You' your home router is four or 5 years old it may be time to replace it take a look at that and make sure that all the updates are being done if there are no updates available or the unit is end of life please go out and replace it with something that is Now supported and will receive security updates if you have any questions about how to check for these updates uh which which devices should you look into what are some recommendations for replacing maybe your home router please reach out to us 76770 5200