The digital age brings with it the necessity of good cyber hygiene, which is as crucial as good health hygiene was when the internet was young. You have to know and practice the basics, or you will leave yourself open to threats. Those threats are arriving at an increasing rate; we have seen several waves of them in recent years, across a whole range of types, but most carry the potential for something that feels very close to a violation of the personal space we have established online. And let’s face it: for many of us, our personal online space is where we conduct most of our business nowadays.
Cyber threats can find us when we’re running old software. That’s the unfortunate truth. The unfortunate reality is that many of us are still using outdated devices. The lifespan of our smartphones, laptops, and personal computers is rapidly diminishing. Short of sudden death, we can more effectively keep our software updated with half-life extensions. Automatic updates function seamlessly, providing us with a strong defence against future cyber threats.
Improve Your Cyber Hygiene: Why Strong Passwords and Two-Factor Authentication Matter So Much
The most vital element of cyber hygiene involves using strong, unique passwords for your online accounts. It is just like having solid, impenetrable locks on the doors of your home. However, if your password is too simple or you use it for multiple accounts, you can instruct your password manager to generate and memorize a long, complex sequence that no one should ever have to memorize. Furthermore, if you enable 2FA for all your accounts, you will significantly improve your account security compared to others.
Public Wi-Fi and Phishing scams.
Although convenient, public Wi-Fi networks can be quite dangerous when it comes to online security. They have no protections in place, making them simple targets for cybercriminals. These hackers intercept network data transfers. Unbelievably, if you need to send and receive sensitive information, an insecure Wi-Fi connection is almost as bad as not having one at all. Should you find yourself using a public Wi-Fi network, it is crucial to employ a VPN.
One of the most common and devastating ways for cybercriminals to steal sensitive information is phishing. Cybercriminals are behind these schemes that target individuals and businesses, using either deceptive emails or fraudulent text messages. These “social engineering” attacks spread widely. It’s vital that we always double-check the identity of the would-be communicator and never click a link or attachment that seems even a little off. Cybercriminals are very sneaky and clever, but they always leave clues.
Regularly backing up your data is a key ingredient of effective cyber hygiene. It is your best protection against losing anything valuable in your digital life to a sudden event. Such an event might be a cyber security problem, like a malware infection, or it might stem from a technical failure, like the sudden death of a hard drive. Should another Windows PC or a backup of that computer be in the immediate vicinity? Should another hard drive or a tape drive be in the offing?
Safeguarding Your Internet Privacy
Understanding the nature of your digital footprint is crucial for preserving your online privacy. It is not enough to just be aware; you must also be active. Regularly checking the availability of your personal information can stop a breach before it happens. To be safe, I’ve always assumed that anything you post online (even in a “private” area) could be accessed by someone or something you don’t want.
Basic Measures to Protect Your Home Wireless Network
Your home Wi-Fi network should be a safe environment for your devices. To make it just that, you should take some essential steps to secure it. First and foremost, change the default username and password for your router. While they are not quite as bad as the “123456” and “password” combos, the default credentials aren’t exactly secret. After you’ve done that, make sure your router is set to use the latest encryption method—right now that’s WPA3, which is much more secure than its predecessor, WPA2.
If you want to remain safe on the internet, you need to practice excellent cyber hygiene. One way to think about that is to apply the ancient adage, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” In cyber hygiene, that ounce looks like a few essential practices—five, to be exact—that you can easily adopt within your daily digital life. Although none of these practices can ensure your safety from attacks, when combined, they can greatly enhance the cyber security of your personal devices and accounts.
