Your online data can be easily tracked and accessed if you don’t secure it well enough. That is why you need to know all of the ways to successfully protect your online data on all of your devices and prevent any unwanted third parties from entering your online private space.
Hold Your Information Close to Your Chest
Let’s start with the most obvious and most important tip – Don’t give your personal information such as social security number, address, birth date, bank account information, your mother’s maiden name and other similar pieces of information to people. This especially applies to people you don’t know. In case you need to provide your social security number for your job, ask your employer if you can give them some other type of identification. Also, whenever you are asked for any of these above-mentioned pieces of personal information, don’t forget to ask them why this information is needed, how is it going to be used, how will it be protected, and what happens if you choose not to share this information with them.
Spot Phishing Scams
With the technology we have today, phishing scams have drastically improved. It is no longer just receiving sketchy emails from Nigerian princes. Nowadays, scammers use the real emails sent out by banks, social networks, and credit card companies. So, how can you know if you’re really receiving an email from your bank or if you’re getting scammed? The easiest way to recognise a scam is to look for some typical tell-tale signs. Some of the most common ones are a generic greeting, poor spelling, an unofficial sender email address, strange links to strange URLs, and so on.
Strengthen Your Password
Another important thing you should do to protect your online data is to strengthen your passwords. First of all, make sure you are using different passwords for every site and social media account you use. If you have trouble remembering so many different passwords, you can at least try to come up with different passwords for your emails. Make sure these passwords are long and full of lowercase letters and capital letters as well as special symbols and numbers. Most tech security experts claim that using personal passphrases is the best way to ensure your password is secure enough.
Use Your Face as Your Password
Speaking of passwords, another great way to ensure your online data security is to use face recognition features when logging in to your online accounts. This is a great option for those who simply can’t remember their login info and their passwords. This way, you know that your online data is secured because no one other than you can unlock them. The fingerprint scanning feature is also great for this.
Beware of Public Wi-Fi Networks
We all like to work at local coffee shops sometimes. The Wi-Fi connection is great, we drink our favourite coffee, and the atmosphere is amazing for work. However, you probably shouldn’t be doing any online shopping while you’re connected to your local coffee shop Wi-Fi. These public hotspots are almost never secure. Unless the website you’re using is encrypted (check to see if the link has HTTPS where “s” stands for secure) you need to avoid giving away personal information, especially information like your credit card number.
Keep Your Operating System Up to Date
To keep your online data secure, you need to update your operating system every once in a while. While updating your system, you are repairing the security holes that hackers can use to access your online data. If you’re not sure how to update your entire operating system on your own, you can reach out to professionals and ask for IT support services. They can help you get the gist of it so that you can do these updates on your own.
Arm Your Computer
However, you should never rely just on your operating system to protect your data. You also need to use anti-malware software and a firewall on all of your devices. This way, you are making sure that spyware and viruses can’t sneak their way into your computer and corrupt your data. You can use firewalls that come with your operating system for a solid level of defence. If you want the highest level of security, you can use a hardware-based firewall. In addition to that, make sure you are backing your files up on an external hard drive.
Lock Your Mobile Devices
As much as you put effort to protect your data on your laptop or computer, you should also take care of your mobile devices. You can either use a password to log in to your phone or an even better option which is a fingerprint scan. A lot of the new phones have additional defence mechanisms. For instance, your phone can be blocked after a certain amount of login attempts.
Use Cloud Services Sparingly
Lastly, cloud systems are great for when you want to send larger files to your co-workers and friends. However, it’s very easy for third parties to track those files and access them. So, whenever you are sending confidential data avoid the cloud systems and use an encrypted USB stick instead.
Conclusion
In conclusion, there are many different ways to protect your data on all of your devices. Some of them include making stronger passwords, locking your mobile devices, using a private Wi-Fi connection when shopping, updating your operating system, and many more.
