Tech Entrepreneur Questions NCA Two-Week Warning

UK National Crime Agency advice on protecting data online has been criticised by a prominent tech entrepreneur as “very questionable” as she urged all those online in the UK to have a different password for every different service used.

Kate Craig-Wood disagreed with many of the guidelines issued by the NCA that accompanied a warning that the UK public has two weeks to prepare for a huge cyber attack.

The entrepreneur “strongly disagreed” with the NCA’s assertion that no one should store passwords on a computer and mentioned a number of tools that would help to make sure this is secure.

It’s Craig-Wood’s belief that it is best practice to retain a different machine-generated password for every website used and then have a master password that is also machine-generated that gives access to a safe containing passwords on a separate external site.

Memset, Craig-Wood’s IT hosting company, is one of those that has a free password generator on its site and it’s recommended that this is used in conjunction with a tool like KeePassX in order to keep passwords locked away with an extra layer of protection against malware.

Craig-Wood’s comments come after a widespread alert was issued by the NCA just days ago where it explained that the UK public had a “unique” two-week window to prepare for a “powerful computer attack”.

The attack, which was identified by a joint effort from several countries led by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], has been weakened and meant that the two-week window mentioned is now available.

The virus is spawned from the GOZeuS and Cryptolocker malware families that both have distinct ways in which they affect machines and each one has caused many million of pounds in damage since first springing up.

Craig-Wood’s comments will give the public another way to keep safe against this and all other future viruses to further protect sensitive personal details from malware and hackers.