Americans are concerned as ever about cybersecurity and the threat of hacking from foreign entities. A new Associated Press/NROC poll showed nine out of ten Americans are at least somewhat concerned about their personal information and government agencies being hacked.
Alan Crowetz, CEO and president of Infostream, Inc., told WPTV's Dave Bohman education on cybersecurity is working but even more work needs to be done to keep everyone’s information safe.
"Only a couple of years ago, maybe 5% of people thought they were only remotely at risk of a breach," Crowetz said on "To the Point." "Now people are getting it. You will get hit at some point."
Crowetz said the first thing people should do to protect themselves is create different passwords for each site. He suggests using a password manager app to store all passwords.
"It's one thing if your Facebook gets breached, but if the same password is on your bank account, now you have a big problem," Crowetz said. "You should use unique passwords everywhere you can."
Sites like HaveIBeenPwned.com help keep track of breaches. Crowetz suggests using the sites to check your vulnerability and which passwords you should change immediately.
"A typical user will have 10 or 11 major breaches that are associated with their email addresses. So your data is out there. It just depends on what data is out there and how people are using it and when they get to it," Crowetz said.
The AP/NROC poll showed Americans are also worried about the possibility of attacks from foreign governments, in particular China, Russia and Iran.
"The government has various agencies that have stepped in that are really putting pressure on private businesses, utilities and other types of organizations to get it together and really taking a hard look at locking this down better than we have been doing," Crowetz said.
No matter if it is a foreign or domestic attack, Crowetz says everyone needs to step up their security game.
"If you are not paranoid about your security and the information out there you are going to get hit. It's almost guaranteed that you will be hit," Crowetz said.
He also suggests investing in a good back-up system to store information documents and family pictures so they will not be lost in a cyberattack.