It’s week 1 of National Cyber Security Awareness Month!
Week 1 Theme: Simple Steps to Online Safety
The basic premise of this week’s theme is:
- STOP: make sure security measures are in place.
- THINK: about the consequences of your online actions.
- And CONNECT: and enjoy the Internet.
You can explore a wealth of resources to help you with this at stopthinkconnect.org. Be sure to click through each of the major menu items: Tips & Advice, Campaigns and Resources as a start. There you will find several articles to read and helpful tip sheets to download.
A few simple but important steps to online safety include:
Lock Down Your Login. By now, you should know that using a simple password is just asking for trouble. Complex passwords, or better yet, passphrases are preferred.
Beyond just a strong password, it’s better to use two factor authentication. It would be a randomly generated code from a token device, a biometric or a one time code sent to your smartphone.
Use extra caution when using free public wifi. Free public wifi networks come with a number of serious security risks. In line with Stop/ Think/ Connect, turn off the feature on your device to automatically connect to wifi so that it doesn’t seek out hotspots which may be risky or compromised. Consider using a Virtual Private Network, or VPN, to create a network-within-a-network, keeping everything you do encrypted. And, if you’re on public wifi, try to avoid logging in to your financial institution, disclosing your credit card information, or accessing other sensitive sites.