Simple Boosts To Cyber Security

Cyber security is among the toughest issues to resolve. It has proven to be difficult since it is constantly evolving and most of our daily activities can be hit by it. How much do we rely on computers nowadays? A lot. Whether it is transportation, entertainment, communication, finance, and even daily needs. Everything seems to be computerized. What do you think would happen if these systems would crash? Catastrophe would ensue.

There are simple things that we could do to ensure the safety of our systems and computers. For your accounts and computer:

• Make sure that the passwords you are using cannot be immediately guessed. Another common mistake made is that they would be jotting their passwords. Surveys said that about 1 out of 3 workers would write their passwords. Inside attack is one of cyber security attacks, this could mean that a disgruntled employee could use other people's passwords to access the system.

There are companies, especially outsourcing companies, that strongly prohibit any kind of written password, like mentioned in the example.

• Aside from the password, there are also operating systems and applications that could protect your account and computer. Firewall for starters, should be installed and used. A firewall is a program that blocks unauthorized Internet traffic, just like how a physical firewall works. Setting up and configuring a firewall, will actually help you maximize its full potential.

Anti-virus software can be your best shot to make sure that your computer is protected, you just have to make sure that it is regularly updated. Anti-virus software would come with spyware detecting programs. There are new computers, nowadays, that are offering or already have an installed anti-virus software.

• If you have sensitive documents in your account and computer, it would be better if you would be encrypting the data. When deleting sensitive documents, then you make sure that it has been totally removed from the system. Hackers are capable of restoring or retrieving any deleted documents especially if it is not totally removed from the documents.

Electronic mails are also vulnerable to cyber security attacks. Different styles and types of e-mail scams are being developed everyday, so everybody has to be prepared and alert whenever we receive emails. Here are some signs that these e-mails are possible sources of cyber security attacks.

• The email is not addressed to you personally and aside from that the sender of the email is somebody you are not even familiar with. Most of phishing e-mails would have an attachments along with the email. These attachments do not even have a clear title or clear purpose.

• As your read the email, you will notice a lot of spelling and grammatical errors which indicates how unprofessional it is.

• Emails that ask you to provide financial information like credit card number, social security number, password and asking you to send some money, is totally a scam. Banks and other institutions do not ask you these kinds of information over an email.

When you received this kind of email, do not click on any links or attachments. These links and attachments would bring you to sites that have high risks of viruses and spyware. For example, experts would say that attachments ending in ".vbs," ".scr," ".exe," or ".pif" can have viruses. It is best to immediately delete the email, do not even open or respond to the email.

Another assurance that even if your computer and cyber security has been attacked is by regularly saving your data and making a back-up disk. So, if ever your computer crashes because or loses some information because of viruses, you would be prepared for it since you have a back-up.