3 Cyber Security Measures You Should Be Using

There are plenty of articles online about how to improve your own cyber security. Because there are so many, it’s easy to get lost or overwhelmed reading about tactics that provide little help.

Mark Stockley, of Naked Security, suggests concentrating only on the essentials. Here are three things that every home should do to immediately make a significant impact on their cyber security.

• Regularly update security software

Most likely, there is already an antivirus program on all the computers in your home. Those antivirus programs, and other security software, is only effective if they’re continuously updated, however. New forms of malware are issued daily and hackers are constantly inventing new ways to attack your machine. The only way to come close to keeping up is to install updates as soon as they’re available. 

• Secure the WiFi

If there’s a wireless router in your home, the first thing to do is to protect it with a strong password. After that, check to find out what type of security it’s set to. You want to protect your router with WPA or WPA2. This stands for ‘WiFi Protected Access’ and are considered the best way to protect your router. The other option is WEP, which has been determined to be inferior. 

• Upgrade all passwords

The key to creating a strong password is to make sure it contains both upper and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols. Longer passwords are better so try to shoot for 8-characters or more. Even with a strong password, the chances of your account being hacked is greatly increased if you use the same password for multiple accounts. Using a strong, unique password for each account is the best security tactic. If you think you’ll have trouble remembering all of those different passwords, consider using a password manager, which are available online and encrypt all your passwords behind one master password. 

These three tips won’t make your security completely impenetrable, but are all vital steps to take. If your security is missing any of these, you are at risk of a malware infection or worse.

To improve your security, or to clean malware and viruses off your machine, contact Geek Rescue at 918-369-4335.