This month marks the 10th annual National CyberSecurity Awareness campaign! The campaign endeavors to spread awareness about online threats and provide helpful tips on what consumers can do to protect themselves.
As official supporters of National CyberSecurity Awareness Month, we’re sharing their recommendations for better online security across all of your devices.
Online security doesn’t apply to just your work computer anymore, or even just your personal computer or laptop. It also applies to all of the smartphones, tablets, and other portable devices we’re using on a daily basis to shop online, do our banking, download services, telework, connect with friends and family, and more. That means that the threats are more diversified than ever, and cyber criminals are constantly trying to take advantage of insecure wireless networks, third party applications, and even texting to try to acquire personal information.
According to the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), many of the safety practices that are used to guard home and work computers apply to your portable devices as well. They include:
- Restricting access to your wireless network, by only allowing authorized users access to your network.
- Changing any pre-configured default passwords to ones that would be difficult for an outsider to guess.
- Keeping your anti-virus software updated.
- Using caution when downloading or clicking on any unknown links.
