Minding your Personal Online Security in 2022

As the world is advancing technologically the issue of cyberattacks is increasingly becoming common. What used to be a historical event is now turning to be something happening so frequently, day and night. The question is no longer about who can be attacked but how to prevent any form of cyber attack or security breach if you may like.

How do you make your information secure and prevent security breaches?

Although no one is immune to a data breach, good computer security habits can make everyone less vulnerable and help them survive a violation with less disruption. Here are seven suggested practices to make your information secure and prevent security breaches:

1. Always have strong passwords. Using weak passwords places you on top of the list of cyberattack possibilities. A strong password is one that combines random strings of upper and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols.
2. Use different passwords on different accounts. Most people do use the same password on several accounts. This is not a good practice at all as using the same password is dangerous because access to one of the accounts places all accounts with the same password at a very high risk of being accessed too.
3. Practice regular changing of your account passwords. One of the most features of many publicly reported security breaches occurred over a long period, and some were not written until years after the breach. Regular password changes reduce the risk you run from unannounced data breaches.
4. Secure your computer and other devices. It is said, “Prevention is better than cure” so why not protect your devices by using anti-virus and anti-malware software? I guess there is no reason not to protect your devices.
5. Always be careful where you click. There has been a rise in the number of phishing cases in the recent past. If you are not extra careful you might end up being a victim and lose control of very important personal information. Whenever you receive a suspicious email, please inspect that email thoroughly before proceeding to click on it. It will save you a lot of resources instead of just rushing to click on this.
6. When accessing your accounts make sure you’re using the secure HTTPS protocol and not just HTTP. HTTPS basically means that the communication between you and the server is secure while in HTTP the communication is not secure and a middle person called a hacker might intercept and steal the personal information that you submit of such connections.
7. Use Two-Factor Authentication (2FA). One of the simplest ways to secure your account and personal information is to enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA). This is a method of establishing access to an online account or computer system that requires the user to provide two different types of information. 

Best practices for strong passwords

1. Use a unique password that is not used on other websites.
2. Create a password that contains more than 8 characters.
3. Let your password contain different characters (numbers/ letters/ special characters).
4. Your password should not include elements that can easily recognize you such as important dates, pet’s name, etc.

In a nutshell, always remember and apply these two important statements when it comes to personal online safety.

• Think twice if you are not 100% sure if it’s alright to do something
• Apply common sense in all the situations

I hope that you learned something or are inspired to take extra caution on matters of personal online security. Be sure to subscribe for more content. Also, leave a comment at the bottom or share some more tips. Thanks for your time.