Month: April 2022

Categories
Instagram Social Media

Get the Best Cat Hashtags for Social Media Here and Find the Cat Images You Want

Cat fans listen up!  You’ve been searching Instagram all wrong and we’re going to tell you how to change it up.  Whether you love to search for cat images on social media or you have the cutest cat (and you want the world to see them), then using the right cat hashtags is the key to social media success.

Growing your cat’s career as an Instagrammer relies on great looking images, the right type of words to accompany that image and of course, your Instagram hashtag use.  People who search for cat images usually use a cat hashtag in the Instagram search bar or they click on other posts’ hashtags to see what images come up.  So if you’re not using a cat hashtag (or you’re not using the right cat hashtags) you won’t get the results you want, and your cat’s Influencing career might stall.

Don’t worry, we’re here to help.  We will give you the best cat hashtags to use to search for cat images and also to help get your cat pictures noticed on Instagram.  Whether you’re a social media lover who wants to leverage your pet business or cat food business (see this interesting piece to help with social media strategies for black-owned businesses.).

How Many Hashtags Can You Use?

While on the topic of growing a cat-related business, on Instagram there’s a limit of how many cat hashtags you can use per post and that’s 30 maximum.  However, before you rush out and try and find thirty different hashtags to use on your cat post, do bear in mind that posts with so many cat hashtags can look cluttered.  We’d recommend sticking with around ten cat hashtags and add one of your own so that if your cat becomes an Insta star, then he or she will already have a unique cat hashtag to accompany their post.  Don’t forget to add tags, emojis, stickers and beautifully crafted text to your cat post.  You can also use a piece like this to tell you how to highlight your post to really dress up your cat post.  For inspirational account name ideas, click here.

List of Brilliant Cat Hashtags

Use Up to 30 Hashtags

Without further ado, here’s our top cat hashtags’ list to help you to find the cat images you want and to use to get your cat’s photographs noticed:

  • #cat.  This is the most commonly-used cat hashtag of all (and no surprises there really!). It’s all about the cat so use this obvious cat hashtag whenever you search in the search bar and whenever you post a picture of your feline four-legged fluffiness.
  • #kitten.  Another obvious one but less obvious than cat – still, it’s a widely used cat hashtag and one that you shouldn’t ignore, especially if your cat isn’t fully grown yet.  Plus, who can resist a divine kitten pic?
  • #catlovers. If you love a cat pic, then you’re a cat lover and this is a very popular cat hashtag that cat fans use to search for pictures of felines.  Add it to your posts to further push user engagement and to find the images you long to see.
  • #catsofInstagram.  This hashtag was designed by cat lovers on Instagram for cat lovers on Instagram!  It’s a highly popular cat hashtag that should accompany every cat post you put on the platform.
  • #catsagram.  Just like the hashtag we’ve mentioned above (but abbreviated), this is another big cat hashtag that people like to use when looking for pictures of cats or when posting pictures of their pets.
  • #kitty.  A less popular cat hashtag than the ones we’ve already mentioned but still, an important cat hashtag in its own right.  Use this cat hashtag on your cat posts to see what results you get and check it out by typing it in the search bar to see how many millions of cat pictures it returns.
  • #instacat.  Another Insta-only cat hashtag that’s a must-use on the platform.  It’s as popular as #catsofInstagram and #catsagram.
  • #gingercat #blackcat #whitecat or any color cat you want!  If you want specifics, then this is a good type of hashtag to use and narrows down your results.

Final Words on Cat Hashtags

So now you have everything you need to find the cat posts you want and to make your cat an inspirational cat Influencer.  Don’t forget to look at what other cat accounts on the Gram use for their hashtags and add around 10 hashtags to your cat posts to maximize your chances of your pet being seen by other cat fans.  Happy hashtagging!

Categories
Internet

How secure is your cloud storage, really?

Do you use the cloud for email, storage and collaboration? Now that so much of our working lives have moved online, the answer is probably a resounding “yes.” Many companies rely on cloud services to run their businesses smoothly and connect with employees and clients wherever they are. They’re a great innovation, but like anything, they do come with some risks.

Here’s the lowdown on cloud storage for business, and how to make sure yours is as secure as possible.

What is the cloud, and is cloud storage secure?

Let’s rewind. The cloud is a type of service or software that stores data on third-party servers, rather than your device. To access that data, all you need is an internet connection and a login. Google Drive and Dropbox are examples of cloud platforms.

While cloud storage security can vary, premium platforms use tools like built-in firewalls and encryption to keep your data safe and private. This means cybercriminals need an “encryption key” to hack into the cloud, which makes their job much, much harder.

3 cloud storage security risks

That being said, cloud storage security isn’t perfect. Many platforms don’t offer secure encryption or authentication, and some can’t distinguish between authorised and unauthorised users.

These are the cybersecurity risks attached to cloud-based applications, and the precautions you can take to protect your data.

Risk: Poor passwords. It’s essential to create complex passwords for your cloud services, and to change them frequently — every 90 days is a good guide. The strongest passwords are long, obscure and hard to guess, and don’t reveal anything about your personal life (such as your pet’s name or the street you live on). Aim to use a mix of letters, numbers and symbols, and avoid using that password for any other accounts.

Solution: Activate two-factor authentication. This requires you to provide two forms of verification before you can successfully log into the cloud. For instance, you might type in your username and password, and then a code is sent to your email address or phone. Two-factor authentication adds an extra layer of security to the cloud, and another obstacle for would-be hackers to jump through.

Risk: Cloud misconfiguration. Most cloud leaks can be traced back to misconfiguration. In other words, the humans behind the cloud didn’t put proper controls in place. They could have failed to limit permissions to the cloud to select users or accounts or made the servers accessible via SSH port 22, which means hackers can launch cyberattacks from afar.

Solution: Cloud service providers (CSPs) are in charge of the security of the cloud, including hardware and software. But everything else is up to the users. It’s important to configure your cloud security so hackers can’t bypass your internal policies and access your company’s and clients’ sensitive information. Firstly, double-check you’re using an encrypted cloud storage platform and audit it on a regular basis to make sure you’re monitoring vulnerabilities and addressing them ASAP. Then, to reconfigure your cloud-based server for your small business, restrict access to the employees who need the cloud (or certain files) to do their job. This goes a long way in minimising your company’s risk exposure.

Risk: Not backing up your data. Sophisticated cloud services feature “redundancy,” which means they copy your data onto different data centres in case of a server crash. That way, if your cloud service provider suffers an outage, you’ll be able to access your data from another server.

Solution: You can also practice redundancy on your own. In simple terms, this involves backing up all the data on your cloud to another source. This could be a different cloud platform or even a hard drive.

Tighten your cloud security

Along with putting these tips into practice, you can tighten your cloud security with ESET. The cybersecurity company offers the best secure cloud storage with ESET Cloud Office Security. This software protects your cloud from malware and misconfiguration, and can help flag and address cyber attacks before they happen thanks to its predictive security function. Meanwhile, ESET Protect Complete provides a multi-layered defense against a range of cyber threats. It also safeguards your cloud, offers endpoint protection and sets up two-factor authentication for you.

Got any questions about cloud security? ESET’s Digital Transformation can help you manage your workforce and boost your cybersecurity today.

Categories
Technology

The Cloud Is Essential To Our Modern Lifestyles; Here’s How To Use It Safely

The cloud is an incredibly useful tool for both work and entertainment. Without the cloud, there would be no Netflix, Spotify, Dropbox, or Microsoft 365. We wouldn’t have collaborated through the pandemic, and we would have been relying on advertising-filled and increasingly low-quality free-to-air television to keep us sane.

As useful as it is, however, the cloud does have one big issue: security. By its very nature cloud services store data on the Internet, and the more we store online, the more we risk losing. To give you an idea of the extent of the threat, just one cloud service, a popular creative provider, Canva, had a breach that exposed 137 million accounts in 2019. More recently, in December 2020, IoT vendor, Ubiquiti Networks, experienced a breach that affected as many as 85 million accounts. The problem here, too, was that IoT devices rely on the cloud to run.

These companies invest heavily in security, and yet they were still breached. Which raises the question: is it possible to safely use cloud computing?

The good news is that there are some basic, common-sense things that we can all do to protect ourselves as they use cloud services, which have become so essential to our modern lifestyles.

1)   Use a reputable ISP.

Finding the right ISP is essential to using cloud services safely. In Australia, there is the concept of “clean pipes,” where a lot of the fight to protect users and cloud-stored data can be done at the ISP level.  A good, reputable ISP will also be able to offer good information and resources around cybersecurity to users. As an additional benefit, the more reliable the ISP, the more reliable the speeds used to access cloud services will be, above and beyond the security concerns, making it safer to rely on cloud services for essential work.

The more that you rely on the cloud to work and play, the more expensive downtime becomes. Losing access to a video streaming service can be irritating. Losing access to your critical work documents with a deadline looming can be catastrophic. As work is placed on the cloud, the convenience of it becomes too much to ignore, but the more you’re going to need a reliable ISP that can resolve technical issues quickly should something go wrong.

2)   Make use of best practices tools and techniques

We’ve all heard these ones before: make sure that every password is strong and unique to the other passwords you use, and set up two-factor authentication wherever possible. These don’t guarantee security (for example, if a cybercriminal knows your phone number, they could potentially get the number transferred to their device and then use that to break past your two-factor authentication), but as you can see from that example above, the process becomes a lot more elaborate and challenging. Having a good password manager that will create and manage passwords so you don’t have to, is a good investment, too. In many cases, cloud services are insecure because people make mistakes online (“password” and “123456” are STILL the most common passwords, against all best practice advice), so being just a little more circumspect with your online behavior can be significant in protecting you online.

3)   Sign out when you’re not using a service

It can be a pain to log in every time that you want to use a service, but you should still sign out at the end of every session, even if there is the option to stay logged in. Why? Because technology can go missing. Perhaps you leave a laptop in a taxi by accident, or perhaps your house gets broken into. If the only thing that a criminal needs to do to get access to your accounts is figure out your desktop password, you could be in for a lot of trouble. Many devices (mobile phones in particular) have the ability to remote wipe. This often needs to be turned on and connected to an account before the device has been lost, however, so make sure it’s one of the things you do in setup.

4)   Regularly refresh your connected accounts

It can be so convenient to log into cloud services using Google, Facebook or Twitter accounts. They can cut time out of setting up a new account and can sidestep the need to set up a separate login. However, these links can also be highly insecure, and if a hacker gets access to an account, it can quickly result in you losing multiple accounts in one go. Make a habit of reviewing those connected accounts frequently and, where they’re not longer needed, disconnecting them so as to not compromise your entire network of cloud services.

Being safe with cloud services does require vigilance, but it is entirely possible to achieve. Making best practice use of passwords, protecting your devices, and making sure that you’re using the right ISP will all result in a smooth, reliable, and secure cloud experience, whether that’s for work or play.