3 Key Cybersecurity Tips:
Patch or upgrade your software:
Don’t use old and unsupported versions of Windows or MacOS. If you are using versions of Windows older than Windows 10 (20H2) or MacOS older than 10.15 (Catalina), your computer operating system cannot be patched and you are at significant cybersecurity risk. Time to replace those old computers. Most applications running on your computer should also be patched regularly. There are many ways to do this and if you don’t know how, ask someone who is more technically inclined than you.
Password Management:
Don’t use the same password everywhere. We all do it—it is very common to use the same password or minor variations of a password on multiple websites or applications. If one of those websites or applications is compromised and the username and password credentials are leaked, the attacker can use or sell your credentials for pennies on criminal Darkweb sites. With this leaked information criminals can make unauthorized purchases, obtain confidential information or steal your identity. To reduce this risk, you should use different passwords, especially on critical accounts such as financial or medical. These passwords can be stored securely in one of many password manager applications that exist, such as Lastpass, 1Password, Bitwarden, Dashlane, or KeePass.
Backup your data:
Most of us have a large amount of digital data that we store on our computers or phones—from photos to journals to financial data to old PAF files. This data could be lost in many ways, such as hardware failures, cloud storage interruptions and criminals who encrypt all of your data with software called ransomware, only to be decrypted (and readable by you again) for a price. To prevent these catastrophic losses, you should backup your important data. A good principle to follow is that your data should exist in 3 different locations. Location #1 is on the primary devices where the data is used such as your primary computer or phone. This data should be backed up to 2 of the following: CD/DVD/Blu-ray, thumb drive, external disk drive, or cloud drive. It is recommended that the 3 copies of your data not be kept in the same physical location. Make a backup and send it to a family member and have them do the same.
More great cybersecurity tips:
