Five Tips for Cyber Safety

It's time for a Digital Clean Up!

Consider making one of your New Year’s resolutions to protect your information, accounts and devices. Here's five quick tips to take in order for you and your family to be more secure in the new year.

Always enable two factor authentication (2FA)--Yes, its a pain, however, it's worth it!

Weak or stolen passwords can provide hackers access to accounts. 2FA provides an extra layer of security by requiring an additional code to log in after a password is entered.

Therefore even if your password becomes compromised, a hacker cannot gain immediate access to your account because they must also bypass the 2FA. Implement 2FA on all of your devices and accounts.

And with that said, Make sure that if the second factor is your cell phone, you have it CHARGED and you don't let anyone play on it (sorry kiddos!) or borrow it.

Keep the operating system and security software up to date on all devices. 

You can turn on automatic updates on your applications, software and operating systems in your device settings. 

It is important to remove unused and inactive browser extensions to help avoid exposure to malicious browser extensions that can track your internet activity. 

When you are keeping software up-to-date, you help reduce security risk and enable your devices to perform at peak speed.  If you go a "mile a minute" your devices should never have lag time.

Use unique passwords-because "password" and "123456" is not protecting anything.

The goal is to make your passwords difficult to guess. The longer the password the better. Try to create a password with at least 12 characters. 

We recommend using a passphrase instead of a password. A passphrase includes a string of  numbers, symbols and upper and lower case letters. Use a phrase that is easy for you to remember but difficult for a hacker to guess. 

Don’t use readily available information that can be found on social media like birthdays or pet names for passwords. 

Always use different passwords for all of your accounts. This way, if your information is stolen in a data breach on one platform, your other accounts are not at risk. 
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Don’t share your passwords via email or text message. ​

Avoid phishing attempts because now your email box is an ocean of danger.

Be wary of giveaways and lottery winning offers. This has been the tried and true for scammers for a while now and spoilier alert, it still works! 

Watching out for sketchy click bait? Hover over links to verify that they are going to the correct website.

Unsubscribe from all unnecessary automated emails to minimize potential phishing scams from contacting you. Get your freebie thing and then hit that unsubscribe button. Most businesses know that when you are ready you will contact them.

 Use trusted security tools for Identity Theft Risk Management, Legalhelp4biz.com has one!

Get guidance on how to mitigate the risks of identity theft. Including how to block unwanted calls and texts, awareness of the latest circulating scams, and the newest ploys to gain access to personal information. 
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Tools should offer Privacy Management and Reputation Management alongside additional resources available through a Membership to proactively reduce risks. 

This blog post was based on the article, Six steps to better security.

Protect my Digital World Now