These days, with more people accessing the Internet, the potential threat of cyber attacks and data breaches have surged exponentially!
Even the number of businesses and individuals who have fallen prey to such illegal activities, suffered some sort of cybercrime or committed a breach of online privacy has shot up.
In today’s time, almost all of us are connected – whether it’s to check our emails, place an online order, or update our social media accounts. As a matter of fact, we spend the majority of our times on the Internet, scrolling through one of our social media pages.
But, are we paying enough heed to what we actually do or to the personal data provided by us? Are we following the safety measures to secure our online data?
Here, we’ve put together the top 7 ways that can help you protect your privacy.
1. Use a Stronger Password
The stronger is your password, the more difficult it becomes for cybercriminals to hack into your personal data. To ensure you have a secure password in place, use a mix of lowercase, special characters like # and @, numbers and capital letters.
2. Avoid Sharing Crucial Information
You ought to be very cautious, especially when sharing your personal information on various social media platforms. It’s best to not post data like your phone number and location.
Share your personal information only on sites you fully trust.
Since a lot of businesses ask you to submit your personal data, do check their origin and why exactly they need your information.
If you are a business owner, then you can look for managed IT support to protect all the sensitive information. However, for individuals, the best way to prevent a data breach is by disconnecting their GPS.
Though being connected at all times might seem like a good idea, registering in real-time all the places you’ve visited only makes you vulnerable to such threats.
3. Be Cautious When Downloading Files Online
When downloading files online, always do it from a website you trust.
There are several sites that let you download applications and other programs for free. But sometimes, you might end up downloading a hidden content that has the potential to take over or completely destroy your data.
Therefore, make sure you’re reading the ‘terms and conditions’ mentioned by the site before hitting the download button.
4. Install Antivirus in Your System
Make sure you have antivirus software installed in your system. Whether it’s your smartphone or laptop, it will always keep your data safe.
Antivirus software not just protects your files from malware and other viruses, but secures your personal data too!
5. Never Say No to Backup
Backup is by far the best way to ensure all your data is safe. Another added advantage of data backup is that should you face a data breach or malware attack, you’ll at least have a copy of all your information.
Along with an external hard drive, you can also move to the cloud for real-time backup. Just make sure you backup regularly.
6. Keep Your Apps Up-To-Date
At times, it could be a little annoying to keep receiving regular app updates since they end up eating a lot of space. However, in reality, regularly updating your application keeps your data away from malicious threats.
7. Use Data Encryption
Last but certainly not the least, data encryption is a crucial security measure you shouldn’t ignore at any cost.
The majority of apps today are fully encrypted, as a measure to offer robust security to their customers. But you should still check whether a program uses encryption before downloading it.
By doing so, you can ensure that even the provider can’t get hold of your conversations.
Data In today’s Time
Presently, data has become the lifeblood of every business so much so that they’ve got robust IT solutions in place to secure the confidentiality of it. Also, with technology evolving at breakneck speed, one can quickly enhance their ways of collecting and evaluating data.
In the near future, many businesses are expected to use AI (artificial intelligence) to get rid of monotonous tasks and tedious programming.
Of course, the approach towards online data and privacy has become a huge concern. But the best way out is to have top-notch security. Along with that, we should also try limiting the data we share on various platforms.
Conclusion
By following the 7 ways mentioned above, you can significantly lower the possibilities of your data falling prey to cyber attacks.
Just be aware of the potential security threats, as that helps you take on the right measures to safeguard your online data and have more security. After all, you don’t know which data and how much of it is being breached at a time.
truly said that now is the time when data breach and cyber hacking has much more potential threats. Does the cookies in the site also is the form of data breach?
By the way thank you for the post, very insightful.