For small businesses and individuals, Prairie Star Technology offers expert computer security consulting in Overland Park and all around the Kansas City Metro area, including Olathe, Lenexa, Shawnee, Leawood and Prairie Village.

It was widely reported again today, that another major security breach occurred and more than 2 million passwords were stolen from sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google.  Click HERE to view the story.

You might ask why would someone steal this information and what could they do with it?  The answer is simple, money and lots of it.  A recent study showed that hacked usernames and passwords for social media sites can sell on the cyber black market for upwards of $200 EACH!  The buyers of this information can then use it to hijack your social media accounts and hold them for ransom by threatening to ruin your reputation with embarrassing posts that are then shared with your friends, their friends and even publicly for all to see.  This could cause great damage to you, your family and even your business.

While there are a number of steps you can take to protect your computer, it’s data and your privacy on your computer, there isn’t anything you can do if your information is stolen from a service provider like Facebook or an app that uses and stores your Facebook log in credentials.  But there are a few things you can do to mitigate the risks of becoming a victim and include:

  • Have a strong and unique password for all your important online accounts. This means 8 or more characters long, contain a combination of upper & lower case letters, numbers and symbols.  Also, make sure that it doesn’t contain an actual word that can be found in the dictionary.
  • Change the passwords on a regular basis, especially if you learn of a data breach like today’s.  While this isn’t convenient when you have to change them on multiple devices like your desktop, laptop, phone and tablet, its easy once you get the hang of it.

If you are concerned about your online reputation and the security and privacy of your personal data and identity, we offer computer security consulting in Overland Park and all around the Kansas City Metro area, including Olathe, Lenexa, Shawnee, Leawood and Prairie Village to individuals and small businesses.  We can offer the peace of mind that the likelihood of being a cyber crime victim will be significantly reduced and invite you to call us at 913/730-6262 to find out more about how we can help.

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Founded in 2010, Prairie Star Technology is an independent IT service and support firm located in Overland Park, KS.  We offer on-site computer service and support throughout the greater Kansas City area, including Overland Park, Shawnee, Olathe, Kansas City, Lenexa, Prairie Village, and Leawood and remote help desk support to clients nationally.  We specialize in improving computer performance, reliability and security for residential and small business customers.  We are focused on providing fast, professional and CompTIA certified computer support to clients nationwide.   Our unique managed service program, Complete Computer Care, combines remote monitoring, preventative maintenance and Internet security all in one bundled offering starting at $15.99 a month.

If you would like to find out more about how we can improve your computers security to better protect your personal identity, documents, pictures and other data and make your computer faster and more fun to use, call us at 913/730-6262 or on our Contact Us page.  If you are going to take on the risks of the Internet, you owe it to your data to have the best Internet security possible.

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For small businesses and individuals, you can rely Prairie Star Technology for expert computer security consulting in Overland Park and all around the Kansas City Metro area, including Olathe, Lenexa, Shawnee, Leawood and Prairie Village..