Personal Cybersecurity:
Then it is right now. We frequently create and share more of our data as we spend more time online. Additionally, sensitive financial and private information may be at risk if this data ends up in the wrong hands. Therefore, both businesses and individuals must protect sensitive data.
Why is Cybersecurity Important?
If you keep up with tech news, you’ve probably seen how much privacy and cybersecurity have been discussed lately. Significant businesses like Google and Facebook have drawn attention to their privacy policies. It matters how enterprises handle data. And regrettably, in the previous year, there were a lot of data breaches.
Private data is no longer confidential if a data breach impacts your personal information. It may be accessible to hackers. Identity theft is another one of the most frequent consequences of data breaches.
There are other effects for a company that has had a data breach. Businesses may suffer income losses or incur higher legal, PR, or insurance costs. Potential threats to intellectual property exist. Furthermore, a data leak might harm a company’s reputation.
You must protect your data, whether an individual or a business executive. Better cybersecurity procedures can also be started by making modest, individual efforts. What can you do to ensure your data is secure and protected from prying eyes?
Why should you care about cyber security?
In the first place, fundraising is about trust. Suppose this trust is broken due to personal information or bank detail lost, deleted, or theft and used by a third party. In that case, the donor may never again donate to your organization or any other. As a result, it will harm your cause, fundraising efforts, and public perception.
An organization must constantly maintain its ties with its donors and safeguarding the data of those donors demands time, specific knowledge, and a sizable and ongoing expenditure.
Establishing a culture of trust for individual donors is crucial because they provide roughly 80% of the money for nonprofit organizations.
What is personal cybersecurity?
The methods and best practices used to safeguard your privacy, data, and devices against unauthorized access and malicious cyberattacks are referred to as personal cybersecurity. You could think of the three pillars that support personal cybersecurity as follows:
Online privacy: control over what information you share and who can access it, including identity protection.
Data protection: the procedure for defending your internet data against malicious users and having the option to recover lost data.
Device security: measures intended to safeguard the information on laptops, smartphones, and other IoT devices, as well as these physical devices, from bad actors trying to tamper with the data for their gain.
Why is cyber security more important than ever?
Over the past ten years, cybercrimes have increased dramatically because of the growing use of cloud services, IoT devices, and ever-increasing global connections. Businesses must build a robust cybersecurity ecosystem instead of relying solely on antivirus and firewall technologies to protect their data.
What are cyber threats?
Scams and malware are the two leading online hazards that impact regular Australians:
- Viruses, worms, spyware, trojan horses, trojan horses, and ransomware are all examples of malicious software known as malware. Devices take control of your accounts and steal your data and money.
- Cybercriminals send scam messages to trick you into disclosing personal information or triggering malware on your device.
- These attacks are becoming more sophisticated and frequent, and they can considerably impact victims’ lives and finances.
The Top 10 Personal Cyber Security Tips:
Understanding Digital Identity and the Nature of the Cyberworld:
In contrast to your single real-world identity, you have numerous digital identities on the internet. To prove your ownership of the device or account, you must provide your digital identification characteristics in the form of credentials. Thus you must take care to preserve these credentials. It has features like real credentials, such as a similar face, voice, and national ID card.
Therefore, if hackers gain access to your login and password for your online accounts, which is typically the case, you have been compromised. Your private social media messages and images, as well as the information and money in your bank account, will be accessible to them.
Avoid Sharing and Clicking Unknown Links:
If you click anywhere without checking the website’s integrity or if you download an attachment from an email without knowing who sent it. It might be a malicious URL that installs ransomware, which prevents you from accessing your data unless you pay the hacker money. Additionally, installing browser add-ons that control the automatic download of Java or scripts is advised because flash plug-in content may include harmful code.
You shouldn’t share your password or any other important information with anyone. Don’t give anyone your SMS code when you utilize multifactor authentication, which combines several different forms of identification, including your face, fingerprint, and SMS-based authentication, to your phone with a one-use code.
For instance, if an attacker asks you for a code to join your WhatsApp group, don’t offer it to them.
Experts generally agreed that sharing is not caring for much of your personal information and credentials. On social media, it is advised to disclose as little personal information as possible. Additionally, review the privacy settings on your social media sites, particularly Facebook.
Use Anti-Virus Protection & Firewall:
Software for AV (antivirus) protection has been the most popular method of thwarting hostile assaults accessing your device and corrupting your data. Use antivirus programs from reputable providers, and only have one AV application on your system.
Another crucial step in protecting your data from unwanted attacks is using a firewall. A firewall controls what traffic is allowed to reach your device and assists in blocking hackers, malware, and other harmful Internet activities. The firewalls included with Windows and Mac OS X are called Windows Firewall and Mac Firewall. A firewall should also be included in your router to shield your network from threats.
Use Two-Factor or Multi-Factor Authentication:
Two-factor or multifactor authentication is a service that strengthens the security of the traditional password method of online identification. If two-factor authentication weren’t available, you would typically submit a username and password. However, when using two-factor authentication, you would be required to input a second form of identification, such as a Personal Identification Code, a different password, or even your fingerprint. After entering your username and password, you would be required to input more than two additional authentication methods under multifactor authentication.
Protect Your Sensitive Personal Identifiable Information (PII):
Personal Identifiable Information (PII) is any data that a cybercriminal could use to discover or identify a specific person. IP address, location information, and other physical or digital identity data are all examples of PII. PCI DSS requirements.
About the information, you publish online in the new “always-on” world of social media. You should post as little information about yourself on social media as possible. Consider checking the privacy options on your social media accounts, especially Facebook. Your chance of a security breach will significantly increase if you add your home address, birth date, or any other PII information. Hackers take advantage of this knowledge.
Use a Password Manager:
An application or tool known as a password manager stores all of your passwords in one location. Gain access to these passwords. Manager. You won’t need to write passwords down, which is a bad idea!
Good password managers include LastPass, KeePass, Dashlane, 1Password, and Roboform. Many provide free versions, while others are entirely free. Additionally, if you use a cloud drive like Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, or similar, you may keep the password database and access it from anywhere.
All-in-One Security:
By selecting Norton with LifeLock, you may combine different personal cybersecurity strategies. It can include parental controls, credit monitoring, insurance for personal expenses in the event of ID theft, backup storage, a handy password organizer, a safe VPN, and more. Any budget can be accommodated by the protection services offered by Norton 360 with LifeLock.
Backup Your Data Regularly:
Regular data backups are an underrated aspect of personal online security. The finest IT and security administrators follow the simple 3-2-1 backup guideline. You’ll retain three copies of your data—two on local and external hard drives and one off-site—on two different types of media (cloud storage).
Always install Your Apps From a Legitimate Software Store.
On your computer, only download apps and software from legitimate websites; stay away from modified or cracked versions. The publisher name of the software is revealed in a message that appears on the Windows screen when you double-click the installation (EXE) file.
It’s acceptable if the publisher’s name is mentioned and the message’s color is blue. However, you should refrain from installing this program from an unknown publisher if the publisher’s name is unknown and the notification color is yellow; it may contain malware that can harm your data.
Check the Email Address and the Link Domain Name:
Verify the sender’s domain name and email address whenever you get an email or access a URL. For instance, you might open a URL that looks exactly like the Facebook website. However, you might find something like “facebook.example.com” if you check the domain name in the domain box above. You might discover something different such as faceboök.com; note that the (o) letter is other here. This is not the original domain name for Facebook. The email address is the same way.
These fake websites and emails are designed to trick you and engage in phishing. When you log in using the false Facebook URL, the hacker on the other end will steal your login and password and access your Facebook account. In the phony email scenario, they may attempt to persuade you to part with cash or divulge sensitive information by posing as members of the Google security team, Paypal, etc. Check the email sender address very carefully, then.