Basics
1: Keep your computer, phone or tablet up-to-date. Lock these devices when not in use.
2: Use strong passwords. Invest is a free or paid password manager.
3: Do not connect to unknown wireless networks, especially if you are working on anything sensitive like banking, or confidential work.
4: Avoid plugging in your phone to a public USB charging port. Carry a charging brick if you can, and plug it into an AC power outlet to charge your devices.
5: Look for any unusual applications on your phone or tablet. Remove unused applications.
6: Bookmark frequently visited sites.
Let’s understand why
1a: Software updates are a mix of fixes, improvements as well as important security updates. Keeping your devices up to date, is a good practice.
1b: Keep your devices locked, especially if left unattended in a public space like a coffee shop or airport. Imagine if your device did not have a password or PIN, and is lost or stolen, whoever possesses your device, now has access to everything on that device.
2: Strong passwords make it difficult for anyone to guess your password when they try to log in to your account. Does your password look like this: ‘password’, ‘P@ssword’, ‘qwerty’, ‘abc123’? These are some of the basic combinations used by an attacker, before they move to sophisticated tools designed to guess simple passwords.
Do not write down your password on a sticky note. Look for a password manager like LastPass, Bitwarden, Dashlane and decide which one suits you best.
3: Unknown networks should not be trusted by default. At times, these unknown networks transmit your data unsecured, in plain text. An attacker could capture this plain text data.
4: Securely charging your electronic devices in public helps avoid becoming a victim to a tactic referred to as ‘juice jacking’. Click here to read up on this article from the FCC highlighting this threat.
5: Periodically checking your device for unknown or unused applications gets you in a good habit of checking if you have any applications on your device that you may have not been aware of. These applications may have been installed by mistakenly clicking on a link, you may have forgotten you installed an application and have not used it in a while, or it may have been installed with the intention of installing malware or stealing your data. Avoid installing apps and software from unknown sources.
6: Do you frequently access your bank, social media sites or email from a browser? First, make sure you are on the trusted website, and bookmark that site. A typical tactic used by attackers is fake links on a website or through email (Phishing), designed to trick you into clicking the link, taking you to a fake site, entering your sensitive information, and in the process stealing that information.
Norton Norris 