Simple Steps To Improve Security

By Tyler W.

February 21, 2021

Simple Steps To Improve Security

Four quick and easy steps you can introduce in to your digital life to increase your security and risk your exposure of being breached, or having sensitive data stolen.

With the increasing volume of cybersecurity attacks there are certain steps we all can take to minimise our exposure and attack vector surface area and improve our overall security. Here are some simple tips for you:

1. Use multi factor authentication – ideally this is hardware based with something like a Yubikey or Onlykey, but any second factor authentication is better than none. As such any (proven) application that will provide an extra layer of defence is encouraged, be that Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, Lastpass Authenticator and so on. If you do not have access to either of these, then text message authentication will also work, but be mindful of sim swapping attacks that can undermine this security measure.
2. Strong and long passwords – passphrases ideally. The longer the password the harder it is to crack. Make them complex, unique and long, if you can do this then you drastically improve your security and reduce the risk of your data ending up in a password dictionary. A password manager can do the legwork for you in regards to this, and we have written a piece earlier to help with this here.
3. Keep hardware safe and secure. Updating is your friend. To help facilitate this often neglected process, shut your computer down regularly so you are at least prompted to install updates. All major operating systems will provide you the prompts to do this, and if you can associate the word, update with security, you are well on the way. This goes for all hardware.
4. Avoid public and open WIFI networks. Use a VPN, this allows your traffic to be encrypted from your ISP and more importantly prohibits it being snooped by nefarious characters. If your data is important and sensitive then you should be using a VPN as regularly as possible. Furthermore, if your data is sensitive then under no circumstance should you be joining a network that you do not control the hardware to.

If you can undertake these steps then you will go a long way to improving your online and digital security. Hopefully these terms are not foreign and will be easily introduced for you, but if you need a hand, the team at Cyberwise are here, and eager to assist you.