Now that the pandemic has moved all your lives online are you aware of the threats to your devices? If you do, how do you plan to keep them secure? Our devices have become an extension of ourselves and it wouldn\u2019t be wrong if they demand our little attention and care.
\nA lot of us take cybersecurity for granted but it needs to change, as cyber threats post COVID continue to evolve. It\u2019s high time you establish solid digital hygiene practices which should be a routine just as brushing your teeth.
\nStarting with the basic yet most taken for granted advice,<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
STRONG PASSWORDS
\nPeople have a tendency to forget things which they don\u2019t really care about. Sadly, one of those things is passwords! They keep very easy and similar passwords for almost all their accounts and devices. The importance of strong and complex passwords can\u2019t be emphasized enough.
\nAlways use unique and complex passwords and not the one\u2019s which resonate with your name, address, etc.
\nUse at least 12 characters along with numbers, symbols, and capital and lowercase letters
\nChange them regularly
\nTurn on \u2018Two-Factor Authentication\u2019
\nDon\u2019t wait for someone to hack your account and then take passwords seriously because if it\u2019s someone today it can be you tomorrow!<\/p>\n
Balance your SCREEN TIME
\nDo screen time rules still apply in lockdown?
\nCOVID 19 has made it nearly impossible to survive without our devices. Of course, almost everything starts and ends on our devices these days but can it be controlled? Have we become addicted to our devices? For most of you, the answer must be yes and that is ok as it is the demand of the time but you definitely need to find your balance.
\nDecide an hour or so of the day when you\u2019ll do device-detox and utilize that time to play board games with the family or meditate or cook something new, anything which interests you.
\nAvoid looking at screens during mealtime.
\nTurn screens off at least one hour before bed.
\nPARENTAL CONTROL
\nScreen time has gone up by 100% for children during the lockdown. Parents are raising a new generation of techie kids. They can\u2019t limit their kids\u2019 screen time because of the COVID situation. After all kids\u2019 education to recreation, all happen online. But at least parents can have a check on what their kids are exposed to when online. Parental Control is the need of the hour. You can keep a check on what your kids are exposed to when online, what all apps they spend time on and make informed decisions.
\nThe easiest thing to do if you just want to limit their times is to set a screen time passcode.
\nYou can buy parental control software to control and monitor all the devices in your home.
\nKids who have a smartphone spend 7.5 hours on it
\n50% of kids admit to being addicted to phone
\n9 out of 10 parents say that parental control software helps their kids
\nKids of this generation are smart and that\u2019s why parents need to become smarter.
\nAlways, always BACKUP
\nBackups are saviors. To protect your important files from any data loss back them up on an external hard drive, or in the cloud. This way you can protect them even if hackers gain access to one of your devices.
\nAll it takes is one click and if you still procrastinate, the loss is yours!<\/p>\n
Your STORAGE NEEDS TO RELAX
\nWith thousands of photos and hundreds of accounts and apps, your device is slowly dying of the burden.
\nDELETE the APPS you hardly or never use!
\nThe devices should always be up to date and apps and accounts which you don\u2019t use should be removed. Every app or account you have on your device has access to your personal information or maybe or your camera or the photo gallery.
\nAll this data is sensitive and you don\u2019t want to risk your privacy. Be very careful of apps you download and permissions you give.
\nLike apps which do not have a thing to do with your camera, but still asks for access to it, always deny. Likewise, apps often ask for your location whereas it\u2019s completely not needed for most of them. Tik Tok is the best example. Beware!<\/p>\n
UNSUBSCRIBE from JUNK EMAILS
\nThere are thousands of emails we don\u2019t even care about but are too lazy to unsubscribe from them.
\nDon\u2019t keep on hitting \u201cmark button\u201d rather just get them out of your life
\nOrganize the mails you do need
\nYou must keep your account and security related emails at one place
\nThis way your important emails about subscription fee, password resets, won\u2019t go unnoticed in the noise of your inbox
\nSpam e-mails carrying malicious attachments and links is new normal. You won\u2019t be able to even identify if they are fake. So be 100% sure before clicking on a link, signing a petition or filling any form because you might be simply giving away your credentials\/information to fraudsters.<\/p>\n
PROTECT your BROWSERS
\nIf you want to protect your privacy, you need to know what are cookies doing on your browsers. Cookies are meant to track your movements across the web. They don\u2019t infect your computers and you don\u2019t have to delete all the cookies but just the third-party cookies.
\nWhat are they? Third-party cookies are used for tracking your movements to gain marketing or demographic data. All the ads which exactly match your latest search query or an item in your wish list becomes possible because of these cookies.
\nHence blocking them will make it difficult for the advertisers to get your online activity details. Browsers such as Safari and Firefox block them by default while others let you opt-in their settings menu.
\nIt\u2019s easy and important to disable and delete cookies from your browsers regularly to protect your privacy.<\/p>\n
PROTECT your E-WALLETS
\nHackers impersonate authoritative organizations and create an urgency to reply. For prevention against impersonation, avoid falling prey to social engineering tricks:
\nSupport staff or financial service providers will never ask for your personal information such as passwords or OTPs over phone inquiries or mails.
\nKeep the wallet software up to date. It allows for receiving important stability and security fixes timely.
\nEnable strong passwords
\nInstall apps from trusted sources
\nReport fraud immediately because the RBI has said that a customer of an e-wallet has no liability if the fraud is reported within 3 days.
\nAvoid auto-saving cards
\nDo not use public wi-fi networks<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t become ignorant of your digital life and use all your resources wisely. Life doesn\u2019t stop because of a pandemic, it goes on. Hard times give us an opportunity to shine brighter and come out stronger. Use this time as an opportunity to make your devices your best friends and not your worst enemies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Now that the pandemic has moved all your lives online are you aware of the threats to your devices? If you do, how do you plan to keep them secure? Our devices have become an extension of ourselves and it wouldn\u2019t be wrong if they demand our little attention and care. A lot of us […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":354,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349"}],"collection":[{"href":"\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}