How do you protect yourself from cyber-attacks? Cyber-attacks are malicious actions whose aim is to compromise systems and steal data. They range from simple attacks like social engineering to ransomware. Today we will look into ways in which we can protect ourselves from these attacks.

SUMMARY

Two-Factor authentication; using 2 different types of authentication to secure something. For example, on Facebook you can use your password and also a one-time-use code that will be send to your phone to verify if you are the one trying to login. Always use two-factor authentication on applications that support it for stronger protection especially where your money (banks) is concerned.

Strong passwords; a strong password contains a mix of upper and lowercase letters, special characters,numbers and should be minimum length of 8 characters. Try to be creative so that hackers or anyone will be able to guess your password easily. Refrain from using common words like cities, personal information. Example: P@55wOrd

OS (operating System) and application updates. Hackers are always looking for vulnerabilities or bugs on the OS or applications so as to launch an attack on them while OS and application owners’ are always fixing these vulnerabilities or bugs through updates. If you don’t update your OS or application you will be prone to an exploitation attack from the hackers; to prevent this always proactively check for new updates and update your OS and applications at least weekly.

Stop oversharing, we all want to share our lives, achievements, interests with the rest of the world. When we overshare our personal details over the internet it is easy for a hacker to predict our passwords, know the places we frequently visit and even where we live, these predictions give a hacker or any person with malicious intention a chance to plan and execute a cyber or physical attack on you.

Review your emails before opening them. Have you ever received an email with an attachment from someone you don’t know or from a site telling you have won an iPhone or something fancy and the only way to access more details is by opening that attachment? Don’t even think about opening that attachment! Flag/report, block and delete that email. These attachments come with either a spyware or a trojan virus, these viruses main agenda is to steal information from your machine without you noticing or suspecting anything.

Don’t use free public WIFI; are you running low on your mobile data and there is free public WIFI that you can use? Why don’t you just connect and check that WhatsApp message or that Instagram post or make that urgent payment? What will you lose if you connect to that WIFI that is too strong to resist? You will be vulnerable to Man in the Middle Attack, this is an attack where a hacker eavesdrops into your connections through which he/she will be able to steal your personal information; credit card number, passwords or redirect your connection request to malicious site that will steal your personal data. Also, by connecting to that WIFI you might download malware into your phone or laptop.