How to Protect Yourself Against Cyber Attack

Tips to Help Protect Against Cyber Attack

There are many ways to help protect your computer and accounts from cyber attacks.  We have listed some tips to help you make sure you are doing all you can to can to foil hackers and Phishermen.  The Lovesail site software is protected by 3rd party tools to properly sanitize input data to prevent dangerous attacks called MySQL injections and cross-site scripting.  It is important that users take responsibility for their own computers and make sure they are protected as much as they can be from cyber attack.

Antivirus Software – This is vital and antivirus software should be installed on your computer.  This is particularly important if you are travelling around the globe and do not have a secure home network connection.  Ensure the software is current, working and not switched off!  Antivirus software has to be switched off sometimes to install some programmes, so make sure it is on and doing its stuff.  It really is worth spending the time and money installing it.  The antivirus software does what if says on the tin and will intercept potential viruses and also other malware software.

Of particular importance would be its ability to stop keyloggers.  Keyloggers are software programmes that can record the keyboard actions of the computer that the malware has infiltrated.  Username names and passwords can be captured and then used in a fraudulent manner. Norton and McAfee at the two main antivirus software companies, I personally use Norton and have not had any problems so far.

Strong Passwords –  A strong password is one that is over 8 characters long, has both upper and lower case letter, numbers and other keyboard symbols ie & * %.  It should not contain your user name, real name, company name or a complete word.

To help you remember a password you can turn some information into an acronym.  For example, the phrase “my dogs birthday is 1 January 2004” could become MdBi1JaN04.

Another idea is to substitute letters of a phrase with other symbols.  For example, the phrase “I love sailing”  Could become ILuvs@aiL1ng.

Avoid writing your password down but if you have to then do not mark it as your password and keep it in a very safe place.

Lastly, it is recommended that you change your password every 4 months and make sure you do not use the same password for multiple accounts.

Secure Network – Most home networks are secure although do check that it has been set up correctly.  Sometimes installation is rushed and important tasks are missed which can result in security problems later.

For your home network make sure you change the default name of the network (SSID).

Change the default password of the network and make sure you use a strong password, see above.

Do not allow auto-connect on devices.  Your device could automatically connect to a potentially dangerous network.

check computer and router firewalls are working.

There are many free wifi spots available now, in fact, it is hard to be out of range these days.  Unsecured networks have their own risks and it is advised you always try to use a secure network.  However, if you have to check your mail and the only wifi available is from the coffee shop at the end of the marina then so be it.  You can be confident a hotspot is secure only if it asks you to provide a WPA password. If you’re not sure, treat the network as if it were unsecured.

Save really important tasks such as online banking for when you have a secure network.

If possible pay for access to a secure network.

Make sure all your anti-virus software is current and working.

So a few moments now to carry out these precautions against cyber attack could save you more time and money in the future.