Understanding cyber threats and cyber attacks is only part of
the information needed to protect yourself. Here are some tips to help prevent
your digital life from being stolen, whether it be a password breach or an
internet-wide vulnerability.
1. Make sure you've got a strong, unique password. In other
words, ensure that your password is difficult to guess. Take the first letter
of each word in that sentence and use that acronym as the base for your
password.
2. Don't use the same password for multiple accounts. Using the
same term for all of your passwords leaves your entire digital life vulnerable
to hackers. This means that if a hacker has one password, he or she has all of
your passwords.
3. Enable two-factor authentication. Many services, including
Google, offer two-factor authentication for logging into your account.
4. Carefully read the permissions before installing apps. This
is one of the most prominent ways in which malicious apps can gain access to
your personal information. These types of issues have been especially present
in the Google Play store. A lot of apps ask for a lengthy list of permissions,
and that doesn't mean they're all ill-intentioned.
5. Avoid inserting hard drives and pendrives you don't trust
into your computer. If you find a random USB stick, don't let your curiosity
tempt you to plug it in. Someone could have loaded malware onto it hoping that
an interested person was careless enough to insert it into their device. If you
don't trust the source, you're better off not putting your computer at risk.
6. Don't send personal data via email. Sending critical
information such as credit card numbers or bank account numbers puts it at risk
of being intercepted by hackers.
7. Avoid logging into your important accounts on public
computers.
8. Back up your personal files to avoid losing them. You should
keep a copy of all important files in the cloud and on some sort of hard drive.
If one of them gets hacked or damaged, you'll still have a backup copy.
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security