8 cybersecurity promises you should give yourself for the new year

To some extent your connected PC or mobile device is a lonely warrior lost in unknown territory and this situation repeats each time you are online. In many cases your

To some extent your connected PC or mobile device is a lonely warrior lost in unknown territory and this situation repeats each time you are online. In many cases your device is unable to detect who is on the other side of the connection: is it your best friend or a disguised cyber-criminal?

Of course, there are lots of security solutions designed to keep you safe online but in any case they are submissive to us, users. Thus the final battle, which determines whether our data and banking credentials will be stolen or not starts and ends with us.

That’s why we all need to become at a little bit more security conscious in the new year… or we could just cut off the Internet cable, throw away all flash memory cards and Wi-Fi spots and stay offline forever. If you don’t like this solution, then you should make 8 simple promises to yourself for this new year:

1) Promise to find out what a strong password is and how to quickly create and remember lots of passwords. I will use unique pass-codes for every website and a unique one for my main e-mail account.

2) Understand why it’s so important to install all the system updates and promise to do it as soon as possible.
3) Promise to back up all of my important data not to lose access to precious photos and documents. Moreover, promise to check your backups work properly.
4) Promise to be careful when connecting to public Wi-Fi. Watch this video to understand why you should avoid using free WiFi as much as possible.
5) Read what phishing is and how to avoid it to not to become a victim of cybercrime. Don’t get fooled so easily: check website links in all messages and file extension for all web-files I’m going to open.
6) Promise not to download any pirated content.  Be careful when using torrents or other similar networks.
7) Be vigilant online and offline to protect yourself and your family:

8) Last but not least, always pay attention to my antivirus‘ advices to help stay protected.

Tips

How to travel safely

Going on vacation? We’ve compiled a traveler’s guide to help you have an enjoyable safe time and completely get away from the routine.