Four ways to boost your cyber security

October is Cybersecurity Awareness MonthOcto­ber is Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty Aware­ness Month, but safe cyber behav­ior should be prac­ticed year-round. When we hear about mas­sive data breach­es, it can feel over­whelm­ing and lead us to think we’re pow­er­less as indi­vid­u­als to stop cyber crim­i­nals. The truth is, there are prac­ti­cal steps we can take to safe­guard our devices and data.

Here are four easy ways to boost your cyber secu­ri­ty:

  • Enable mul­ti-fac­tor authen­ti­ca­tion. Also known as two-step ver­i­fi­ca­tion, mul­ti-fac­tor authen­ti­ca­tion adds a sec­ond step when log­ging into an account (to prove you’re real­ly you), which great­ly increas­es the secu­ri­ty of the account.
  • Use strong pass­words and a pass­word man­ag­er. Remem­ber, pass­words are the “keys” to your per­son­al home online. Your pass­words should always be long, unique and com­plex. Nev­er use the same pass­word twice. If you need help keep­ing track of all of them, try using a pass­word man­ag­er to secure­ly store your pass­words for you.
  • Update soft­ware. Reg­u­lar­ly updat­ing soft­ware is one of the eas­i­est ways to keep your per­son­al infor­ma­tion secure. Most com­pa­nies pro­vide auto­mat­ic updates and will send reminders so you can eas­i­ly install them. If you’re not receiv­ing auto­mat­ic soft­ware updates, set a reminder to do so quar­ter­ly. Watch out for fake updates from cyber crim­i­nals. Always think before you click.
  • Rec­og­nize and report phish­ing attacks. Don’t take the bait when cyber crim­i­nals go phish­ing. The signs of a phish­ing attack can be sub­tle, so take time to thor­ough­ly inspect emails. Most phish­ing emails include offers that are too good to be true, an urgent or alarm­ing tone, mis­spellings and poor­ly craft­ed lan­guage, ambigu­ous greet­ings, strange requests or an email address that doesn’t match the com­pa­ny it’s com­ing from. If you think some­thing is “phishy,” report it.

Cyber crim­i­nals will always pose a threat, but when we take a risk-based approach to our cyber behav­ior, we’re cre­at­ing a safer inter­net for all. Vis­it staysafeonline.org for addi­tion­al cyber­se­cu­ri­ty tips.