Last night, if you were in front of your TV on channel 2 at around 7:20, you got the scare of your life if you’re an Internet marketer. Heck, if you’re anybody living in this world you got the scare of your life. The show 60 Minutes ran a story on Internet hacking, and let me tell you…this is some serious stuff. In this article, I’m first going to briefly go over what was revealed and then go into how to protect yourself as an Internet marketer.

The story itself focused on the many thousands of hacker attempts and successes (yes, successes) that occur in our country each day. Stories ranged from banks being robbed of millions of dollars to power plants literally being destroyed. Many possible scenarios were also pointed out. Some of them were downright frightening. In fact, they’re so frightening there is no way I’m going to mention them in this article because the last thing I want to do is give anybody any ideas.

But the story did get me thinking. If our own government is so powerless to stop these attacks, what chance do we have? We all talk about security and what we should do to protect our sites and our online accounts, but if the US government had hackers actually in their defense systems for three days before anybody even knew it, who are we kidding? It’s like fighting a war with pea shooters against Sherman Tanks. I for one do not like those odds.

However, that doesn’t mean we just roll over and play dead. Just because the world might end tomorrow from a nuclear attack doesn’t mean we sell all our possessions and move into a homeless shelter waiting for the end to come. If we lived our lives afraid of everything that MIGHT happen, we wouldn’t live at all. Sure, the potential dangers from hacking are scary as all heck. But personally, I’m more scared of reaching the point where I just don’t care anymore because I think there is nothing I can do about it.

So do yourself a favor. Make sure you use passwords that are at least fairly hard to guess. Don’t make it any easier for the hackers than it already is. Remember, this is your livelihood. If somebody crashes your business, the mortgage company isn’t going to care. They’re still going to want their mortgage payment the first of each month. Your car payment is still going to be due. The utility company is still going to want THEIR money or your lights are going to go off.

In addition to using hard to guess passwords, make sure you have a firewall. Don’t click on any links in emails unless you are absolutely positive where they’ve come from. Don’t give out your password to anybody. Change them regularly. Using something like Roboform, this is an easy process.

It’s a flat out dangerous world we live in, and the 60 Minutes horror story that I saw last night only reinforced just how dangerous it really is.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

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