During this age of unavoidable technology, our privacy is, in many ways, more precariously positioned than ever before. Protecting personal information from hackers requires making good choices on a daily basis. Thankfully, there are plenty of ways to keep your information safe and secure, even beyond traditional antivirus software, antimalware, and applications. Let’s explore some of these simple and easy best practices:
First, do you have any Windows/XP/Mac updates that you’ve been prompted to run recently? It seems like a simple task, but how many times have you postponed your update because you’ve been in the middle of a Netflix marathon of House of Cards? Stop snoozing that update and let your computer protect itself from attack. Without a recent update, your computer may not be able to ward off the constant attempts of phishers and scammers.
Second, create strong passwords and encrypt your devices. Passwords should never be simple, nor should the same password be used for multiple sites. Let’s leave ‘abc123’ in the ‘90s (and even then it was a terrible password)! If a hacker can crack your “master password,” they’ll gain access to all of your accounts and logins. In other words, you’re in deep trouble. A complex and secure password is especially important if you are using a password manager to keep track of your various passwords. Password managers can be a great tool for storing all of your logins in an encrypted vault. Just be sure to set a secure, unique, and complex master password for that vault. Encryption can be turned on through your computer, and you can create a fingerprint lock for your phone.
Finally, don’t be tricked. We need to watch where we are clicking, what we are opening and downloading, and we need to be selective when entering information into a form. As long as we remain alert and skeptical of seemingly random invitations and offers (spam email, false login pages, etc.), then we have already gained an upper hand.
Check out the Wall Street Journal’s article, Don’t Be Hacker Bait, for these tips and more. They’ll explain in further detail how to take each step and secure your information in under an hour. That one-hour investment could save you many hours of hassles and sleepless nights in the future.