Well much like school the internet has the same thing and a much longer memory.

If your PC or mail server gets hacked and sends tens of thousands of emails the public IP address of your internet connection will get a bad reputation to the point other systems may not accept email from you.

Your public facing Website may get hacked and hidden pages are created that can be used for delivering malicious content via the emails I have warned you not to open.

These types of issues can be very harmful to your Internet Reputation which will impact access to sites, email and a number of things you depend on daily.  Many smart firewalls will now simply block connections to sites purely based on reputation scoring.

Sites such as the below are used to check how your IP Address, Email Domain and WebPages appear to the outside world, many you can subscribe to for automatic alerting if you are added and it is key to protecting your Internet Reputation;

WatchGuard Reputation Enabled Defense - Firewall based reporting & blocking for IP Addresses, Countries (Geo) and Content.
http://www.reputationauthority.org/

SPAM Database lookup - Check to see if your IP Address is listed a SPAM Sender.
https://www.dnsbl.info/dnsbl-details.php
http://www.mxtoolbox.com

BrightCloud Threat Intelligence - Website & Content Reputation
http://www.brightcloud.com/tools/url-ip-lookup.php

There are lots more ways to check, this is to provide a snippet of what can prevent you accessing or emailing content.

Contact us further if you need assistance in checking your Internet Reputation - helpme@itblog.com.au

Phishing is not just limited to emails. Many cyber criminals are now phishing people via text message.

People more likely to click on a link in an SMS than they are in an email- it feels more personal and intended for them.

In some cases we have seen malware / malicious applications delivered using this method. 

The phone is then hijacked and the hackers monitor access to accounts such as online banking and then logon using your credentials.

To prevent this you need to check the content for validity, remember the Banks, Government and other Large Corporates will not as for personal details via SMSM.

Virus protection should also be installed on your mobile devices.

It’s good for search.
Google’s algorithm requires sites to essentially battle it for top search rankings, two websites that could both rank for a user’s query, essentially running toward the finish line of top results.
But what happens if there’s a tie? Do the sites battle it out in a “sudden death” round?
It all goes back to the idea that Google is constantly solving for the user, and makes frequent changes to its algorithm that create a better experience. Which is why our next point makes sense.

It’s better for users.
SSL helps to prevent these “man-in-the-middle” attacks -- “a form of eavesdropping where communication between two users is monitored and modified by an unauthorised party” -- and keeps user information secure.

That makes https especially important if your website accepts credit cards or has a login functionality. With so many of these hacking incidents making headlines, users want to know that your brand is making an effort to protect them from their private information being stolen or compromised.

user privacy = important
https = good for privacy

SSL is required for AMP.
A few pieces of vocabulary to break down here:

“AMP” stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. It’s the technology that makes certain pages load almost instantaneously on mobile. So, when you search for something on your mobile device through Google, you might notice that some results have a lightning bolt icon next to it, that means that it’s AMP-ready.

Google is indexing mobile.
So, that thing we just said about the importance of mobile? It turns out, Google is actually going to start indexing mobile, which means that its “algorithms will eventually primarily use the mobile version of a site’s content to rank pages from that site.”
But in order for a mobile site to be indexable, Google recommends several best practices, one of which is to “start by migrating to a secure site,” especially “if [you] don’t support HTTPS yet.”

Not secure.
To elaborate -- In 2017, Chrome 56 will start displaying “not secure” in the browser bar for any http (notice it’s missing the “s”) sites that ask users for login or credit card information.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m about to make an online purchase and see that the site isn’t secure -- for example, that the padlock icon in the browser bar is broken -- I navigate my business elsewhere. And I’m not alone. In fact, only 3% of online shoppers say they would enter their credit card information on a site without the green padlock.

Imagine if Google starts doing that work for users before they can even get to checkout. If the number is as low as 3% now, before search engines start doing the legwork to label sites as “not secure” before anyone even visits them, you can see how traffic to those sites will suffer a huge blow -- as well as its digital sales revenue.

The long and the short of all the above is you need for your web site provider / developer to update your site, purchase a SSL Certificate and secure your website, don't act and miss out...