In 2023, Western Verify announced our strategic partnership with Microsec, a leading cybersecurity firm dedicated to safeguarding businesses against digital threats. This partnership marked a significant milestone in Western Verify’s commitment to providing comprehensive security solutions to their clients. By joining forces with Microsec, Western Verify now offers an enhanced suite of cybersecurity services alongside their trusted background screening offerings. Together, Western Verify and Microsec are dedicated to helping clients with cybersecurity confidence and resilience.
The journey of MicroSec started in early 2023 with the mission in mind to anoint our customers to be a Cybersec Warrior. I was so much into this idea that I separately got a domain of cybersecwarrior.com. MicroSec believes in that the concept of privacy or cybersecurity has to be embedded in the psychology as it begins right from the mind.
As humans we are constantly generating data in all forms be it through our reviews or sharing our opinions on social media or even when using various softwares online. So, the biggest question is how to safeguard yourself in this journey of data gobbling services and apps we have on our phone and computers. Guess what, it’s not only those apps trying to profile you but also the treat actors who constantly want to steal your info and make profit either by selling the info or by using the info as a mask to hurt more people online. This is the reason why I felt that if we have to safeguard our virtual environment it has to be done in three-fold ways which comprises of equal responsibilities between business owners, consumers and the government. Generally, I have noticed that individuals take less interest in safeguarding their data as they have not been exposed to the benefits of privacy or they haven’t yet faced the situation where their info got compromised.
Americans have mostly been affected by scams online where their data gets compromised be it email or phone number and even their financial information. One of the most common advice I give to my clients are to have two separate email addresses one which would be used to register at all the important places like banks, insurance and healthcare facilities and another set of email which would be used in all places of shopping and random places where one needs to sign up for services. I always advice my clients that to use a masking email
feature which Apple provides when signing up for services thus not exposing their personal info. In terms of financial services, especially with credit cards, individuals can contact their credit card providers to generate virtual credit card numbers thus preventing fraud when making transactions. In terms of phone numbers, one of the best practices is to have features like spam protection like ATT Call protect or robocall blocker from Nomorobo enabled for their respective phone numbers thus enabling easy recognition and blocking fraudulent phone calls. Recently AT&T launched branded calls where business owners using their services would get easy recognition when they call their customers thus preventing their phone number from being marked as spam and adding peace of mind to customers who would know the origin of a phone call.
MicroSec takes an unique approach as we work with microbusiness owners consumers and senior citizens. One of our biggest observation is that customers be it business or non business haven’t had yet understood the importance of browser security, as they feel having an antivirus would protect them but that has not been always the case. Our most recommended browser extensions for privacy and security are ublock origin, privacy badger and Malwarebytes browser guard.
We still advice our customers to use a privacy shutter for their webcams, and for not so tech savvy customers we ask them not to store any form of credentials on their browser and rather use a notebook like the old school method. As an MSP or service provider its imperative to understand what and how much customers are capable of and based on that steps have to be formulated thus preventing complications and ensuring safety and security at all times.
One most important thing to note is that we always advice our clients that cybersecurity is a preventive measure like that of vaccines and taking or following the steps like that of a rule won’t
help as one has to apply their own understanding at all times. Customers shouldn’t have the feeling that paying for services would give them anbsolute protection rather we communicate with our customers regularly thus staying updated with the rising fashion of problems. We tell our customers that the more you share it would help us to educate other customers in our database.
In conclusion I would like to highlight that fact that the key ways to safeguard our clients is to have constant communication just like warriors need constant training to keep them at their best. We have to remind our customers that cybersecurity responsibility is also an important one in a family thus protecting all the members.
Written by Microsec owner Jude Sakar