Five Things You Can Do During Cyber Security Month

As we celebrate National Cyber Security Awareness Month here are five things you can do to stay safer and more secure online:

1. Change your Password

A good strong password is the root of all good security.  According to the traditional advice — which is still good — a strong password:

• Has 12 Characters, Minimum. A longer password is even better.
• Includes Numbers, Symbols, Capital Letters, and Lower-Case Letters
• Isn’t a Dictionary Word or Combination of Dictionary Words
• Doesn’t Rely on Obvious Substitutions. For example, “H0use” isn’t strong just because you’ve replaced an o with a 0.

You may also want to consider using a password manager or increasing the security of your passwords by using two factor authentication.

2. Make sure your Mobile Devices are secure

• Update or change your passcode.  
• Update your OS and Apps.
• Activate the ability to locate your device. 
• Find my iPhone (https://www.apple.com/icloud/find-my-iphone.html)
• Seek Droid (https://seekdroid.com/)

3. Run a virus scan

4. Update your Operating System and other applications

• Set aside time to install updates. even if they require you restart your computer. If you haven't updated in a while, you may need to run updates and restart a few times.
• Make sure that your various applications, including your web browsers, are running the most current versions.
• Don’t forget to also update your web plugins (i.e. media players like Adobe Flash and file viewers like Acrobat Reader.

5. Make sure that you have a backup strategy in place and are backing up regularly. 

Check out Tips for Backups for L&C specific advice. 

For even more suggestions, check out Consumer Report's 66 Ways To Protect Your Privacy Right Now and our own Information Technology Security Awareness site.