With enough time, resources, and skill, all security systems can be breached. Your job is to make it as time-consuming and difficult for a hacker/criminal group to steal your data, money or identity.
Attacks cost criminals in terms of wasted time. Much like bag-snatching and mobile theft, if they find it too difficult to attack you, they will move on.
Social engineering (the art of pretending to be someone else to gain information from a person or institution) is a very real threat so be very careful who you give information to and never trust a caller claiming to be an employee of a financial institution or similar. If in doubt, call the institution using the phone number on your card or their official website contact page.
Passwords are a pain to remember, write them down neatly in a book and keep them in your home or use a secure password service like BitWarden.
Two-factor authentication (2FA) is now essential for important services that you log into. 2FA is an extra step after a password and is always much safer when you use a mobile app rather than SMS textcodes (SMS can be intercepted and/or spoofed). There are many safe and free 2FA mobile apps (Google, LastPass, 2FAS, Microsoft and many others) that you can load onto your phone/tablet.
PASSWORDS
– Use strong passwords for all your accounts
– Minimum 12 characters, mix of letters, numbers and symbols
– Don’t use the same password twice
– Don’t use a word that can be found in a dictionary
– Test a password’s strength using an online password strength checker
EMAILS
– Check that you recognise the sender
– Is the sender likely to be sending me this email?
– Does an email offer sound too good to be true?
– Be wary if there is time pressure to act
– Do not click links in emails, visit the website yourself manually
– Do not open attachments you are not expecting
WINDOWS/MAC COMPUTERS
– Use reputable security software (BitDefender/Kaspersky not Norton/McAfee/AVG)
– Avoid visiting websites that allow the download of pirated/illegal material
– Do not click links in emails, visit the website yourself manually
– Do not plug unknown USB or other external devices into the computer
– Set up automatic backups and periodically check that new files are on the backup
– Take updates as soon as they appear
– Never allow remote access by anyone
MOBILE PHONES/TABLETS
– Use a 6-digit PIN and a short lock/timeout (under 5mins)
– Lock the device when putting it down
– Don’t hold it in a way that it can be snatched easily in public
– Use the built-in “find my device” service
– Don’t connect to unknown WiFi hotspots
SOCIAL MEDIA
– What is on my social media accounts, and can anyone on the Internet see it?
– Do I really need to share my home address, email address, phone numbers, pet names etc.
– Do a search for “yourself” to see how much information you are giving away