3 Ways to Protect Your Data In the Digital Age
As more of our lives involves using digital means to accomplish our daily tasks things get faster and easier. We can order meals, groceries, take classes, and pay the bill for it all online. However all this easy access can also open a door to unwanted hackers and scammers.
Personal habits are often the key to protecting data, and by taking a few simple steps you can make it much harder for anyone to break into your digital life or that of your Non-Profit Organization.
Step 1: Take Passwords Seriously
Having a strong password is one of the most basic steps in protecting information, but it is frequently overlooked. Last names, birthdays, children’s names, all personal information is off limits. It is easily found online, especially if you do not have tight security on social media accounts such as Facebook.
Writing a password down is another classic but common mistake. No sticky notes on your desk or on the back of the keyboard. If you must write them down, leave the note at your house as a backup.
Use a password that you can remember, maybe a phrase or reminder of a goal. Include capital letters, punctuation and numbers to make it more secure. Don’t share it with anyone, and change it regularly. A good recommendation is every 30 days.
Step 2: Disguise Your Data
Encryption is just a fancy way of saying that the data is scrambled so that it can’t be read without a key. It can be more secure to encode data in this way than to delete it because deleted files can still be pulled off the hard drive.
Setting up encryption is not hard, but it’s not something you may have thought to check. Apple and Windows both have the option to turn on auto encryption of the hard drive, or you can buy a third party encryption program. If you do business on your phone you can turn on encryption in the settings on most models.
Be careful what programs you use to communicate as well. Make sure your email is encrypted. Signal and Whatsapp are texting programs that automatically encrypt instant messages, while Facebook Messenger and Google’s Allo have it as an option that will need to be turned on.
Step 3: Stranger Danger
We are taught as children not to trust people we don’t know and that is a good rule for the digital world as well. Emails from someone you don’t know are suspicious, and links or instructions that seem stranger are a big red flag. Don’t click on flashy links that may take you to a site that secretly accesses your computer.