During this well-deserved holiday period and festive season, many of us will make use of the internet in some way or another to assist us. Whether it’s for virtual gatherings, festive posts on social media, research or online shopping. Unfortunately, this increase is online activity breeds opportunity for cybercriminals to potentially compromise our personal data and our organizational data. Below are a few cybersecurity tips to give your data an extra bit of security over the festive season.
1. Update & strengthen your passwords
It’s crucial to ensure that your passwords for your various accounts are not only unique but are also made up of a combination of numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters and special characters. One should also refrain from basing passwords on information like your name, family members birthdays, pet names, your first car, etc.
2. Enable two-factor authentication
Two-Factor Authentication adds an extra layer of security to your accounts by asking for a second form of authentication in addition to your password. This can be in the form of a code emailed or SMS’d to you or shared via an authentication app.
3. Be extra cautious when shopping online
Many online purchases occur during the festive season and cybercriminals exploit this by creating fake versions of legit websites or by employing phishing scams. Shoppers should either stick to shopping on reputable websites or conduct thorough research of a company / website before sharing any personal information. Purchasers should also refrain from clicking on links on emails or adverts and should rather search for the website itself on their search engines and access the website that way.
4. Only use secure Wi-Fi connections
Public Wi-Fi networks are high risk when it comes to cyberattacks and one should avoid accessing sensitive information or applications at all costs. This can be logging into banking apps, accessing business emails, logging onto personal accounts online etc. If you have to use a public Wi-Fi, use a VPN (Virtual Private Network). This makes it a bit more challenging for cybercriminals to intercept your data as a VPN encrypts your internet connection.
5. Update your devices and their software
While this should be something we do continuously throughout the year, we must ensure that the software on our devices and the applications on it are up to date. Outdated software normally has security vulnerabilities that cybercriminals have found and learnt to exploit.
6. Always back-up your data
In general, we should always be backing up our data in the event that we need to access it on a different device or restore it. It’s common for device hard drives to crash, for the device to break or to get stolen so having a backup of all our important data helps us to access or restore it more easily if needed. The same concept is followed in the event of a cyberattack.
While everyone settles down the for festive season and begins to relax, we must remain vigilant when it comes to cybersecurity and do what we can to protect our data and stay safe online.
