As the owner of a small business, church or charity, you might never have heard of the term ‘pwned’. It’s a common term in the online gaming community, but actually has severe connotations for the business world.
‘Pwned’ is pronounced ‘poned’ (as in ‘toned’ or ‘droned’). In gaming, it means someone has been completely and utterly defeated. However, in the commercial world, it usually refers to a data leak.
This article explains what it means to be ‘pwned’, the risk to smaller businesses, churches and charities, and how to protect yourself against it.
What does ‘being pwned’ mean?
The most popular theory suggests the term ‘pwned’ originated in the online computer game Warcraft. One of its developers misspelt the word ‘owned’ during the coding. When a player was defeated in battle by a computer-controlled player, it was designed to say “*player* has been owned”. However, due to the typo, it instead came up as “*player* has been pwned.”
The word was quickly adopted within the gaming world. It now broadly means to completely obliterate an opponent, often trouncing them without taking any damage. Stemming from the word ‘own’, to ‘pwn’ someone is to hold something over them.
In gaming, it’s a harmless expression that players throw around every now and then.
However, the term has filtered across into the cybersecurity industry. Here, it’s more serious. In the same way, being ‘pwned’ means to be ‘owned’, in the sense of being defeated. It usually means that a hacker has access to your account and the details it contains. They’ll often get hold of this information during a data breach.
What’s the risk of being ‘pwned’?
Being ‘pwned’ – hackers accessing your accounts – is extremely dangerous, no matter which accounts they have access to.
For example, imagine a cybercriminal gets hold of your email address and password for a relatively harmless social media account. From here, their options are endless. You’ve likely used that same email/password combination on many other websites, so they could get into accounts for your bank, professional services, mortgage lenders, you name it through use of the password reset options that would send a reset link to your email. They could send messages to your customer contacts, infecting their devices. They could gather your personal information (name, address, phone number, and so on) and use this to set fake accounts up in your business name.
The risks are endless, so it’s vital to do everything you can to protect yourself and your organisation.
How to protect yourself from pwning
Whenever you sign up and create a new account with any website or organisation, you trust them to keep your details safe. Although you might not have ever read it, the Privacy and GDPR Policies (the ones usually included under the “Have you read the Terms and Conditions?” heading you always tick instinctively) outline the company’s reasonable measures to protect you.
There’s very little you can do to stop one of these external companies from being hacked, allowing criminals to steal customer data. However, you can take certain measures to limit the damage even if it does happen.
The most important thing you can do is use a different password for every account you create. We know it’s frighteningly tricky to remember all these, which is where secure password managers come into play. Try the Three Random Words technique, one of the safest ways to create a password.
Here are several further tips to help you limit the damage of being ‘pwned’:
- Change all your passwords every few months at most
- Delete old accounts with companies you no longer use – ask them to delete all your data, too.
- Limit the amount of personal information you save within your account (for example, don’t save your credit card information or passport number).
- Use websites to alert you as to whether you’ve been pwned – such as Have I Been Pwned.
How AMDH can help prevent you from getting ‘pwned’
AMDH Services is a specialist ICT consultancy based in the East Midlands. We partner with you and your business to ensure you get the most out of your cloud-based systems while maintaining the critical aspect of cybersecurity.
If your small business, church or charity organisation could use a helping hand with the technical side of computers and their operations, we’d love to help out. We’re an affordable company with a reputation for reliability and continued support as you grow.
To avoid being ‘pwned’, we’d recommend our IT security services. We’ll set up effective controls and monitoring of user accounts to minimise the effect of hackers trying to get in. In the meantime, we can support you by developing strategies and policies to help your digital transformation while keeping all sensitive information safe.
If a highly skilled and experienced ICT consultant would benefit your small business, charity or church, we’d love to help.
We can be contacted at info@amdhservicesltd.com or on 01332 322 588.
We look forward to an informal, commitment-free chat discussing your situation and how we can support your continued growth.
