{"id":30540,"date":"2020-11-23T15:36:04","date_gmt":"2020-11-23T10:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/?p=30540"},"modified":"2021-01-19T11:44:06","modified_gmt":"2021-01-19T06:14:06","slug":"3-easy-steps-to-improve-personal-online-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/security\/3-easy-steps-to-improve-personal-online-security\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Easy Steps to Improve Personal Online Security"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Online safety has become a significant issue both for cybersecurity experts and casual Internet users alike. Cyberattacks happen daily, and some people aren&#8217;t aware of that because online security is still not widely discussed.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s why we&#8217;re drawing attention to this topic that is crucial for the well-being of anyone actively using the Internet.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year <a href=\"https:\/\/www.updateland.com\/expert-vs-non-expert-cybersecurity-practices\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Updateland wrote about how cybersecurity practices differ between experts vs non-experts<\/a>. Unsurprisingly, a lot of people still don&#8217;t know about safe browsing.<\/p>\n<p>In this article, we&#8217;d like to recommend three easy steps to improve online safety, starting with secure <a href=\"https:\/\/nordpass.com\/password-generator\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">nordpass password generator<\/a>\u00a0and ending with home network security.<\/p>\n<h3>Password managers<\/h3>\n<p>Most online services are now hidden behind the password. It&#8217;s a good thing, but password management practices haven&#8217;t changed for a long time, and cybercriminals are fast to exploit that.<\/p>\n<p>Weak passwords can be easily guessed, and reused passwords are a danger for multiple account security. But it&#8217;s nearly impossible to remember dozens if not hundreds long, complex, and separate passwords for each service, so what can you do?<\/p>\n<p>Luckily, password managers are there to help. They have been developed some time ago, but only in the last decade grew in popularity due to rising concern about online safety.<\/p>\n<p>A password manager is essentially a safe and encrypted vault that will store all your passwords for you. Instead of having to come up with a unique and strong password, you can use a password generator to produce one, then save it for the service you want to use it for in your vault.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, most password managers have an autofill function, which will automatically fill in the password instead of having to type all of those tricky symbols.<\/p>\n<p>This makes the browsing experience a more comfortable and secure one, or, how the saying goes, you&#8217;re killing two birds with one stone.<\/p>\n<p>Last but not least is zero-knowledge password manager architecture. This means that the vault with all the passwords is accessible only to the owner of the vault, and nobody else.<\/p>\n<p>It significantly decreases the risk of a data-leak and can prevent your accounts from being stolen. If you&#8217;re still not sure whether wrong password management is a serious issue, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cyberdefensemagazine.com\/credential-stuffing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">read about credential stuffing attacks<\/a> that&#8217;ve been gaining in popularity for the last couple years.<br \/>\n<span class=\"seethis_lik\"><span>Also read:<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/finance\/what-is-walmart-credit-card-grace-period\/\">What Is Walmart Credit Card Grace Period? Explained<\/a><\/span>\n<h3>Use a Virtual Private Network<\/h3>\n<p>Another critical issue is Internet access security. These days we are accustomed to having Internet access wherever we go.<\/p>\n<p>Be it our smartphone mobile data, guest <a href=\"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/future\/the-future-of-wi-fi-trends-that-could-shape-the-future-of-india\/\">Wi-Fi network<\/a> at the friends&#8217; house, or public Wi-Fi hotspot in a coffee shop &#8211; we connect to these networks without thinking whether they&#8217;ve been adequately secured.<\/p>\n<p>Public Wi-Fi access points frequently become a target for hackers looking for an easy money grab.<\/p>\n<p>A lot of people connect to them automatically and have no idea that a cybercriminal has infected the network and is spying on every user on it.<\/p>\n<p>He or she might peak on your confidential conversations. Or &#8211; the worst-case scenario &#8211; if you&#8217;ve done some online shopping, they might even get access to your finances.<\/p>\n<p>A Virtual Private Network, or a VPN, is highly recommended by numerous cybersecurity experts. This software has been developed for business data security, but soon was adapted for public use because of security benefits that it provides.<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vpngeeks.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">VPN encrypts all of your online data-flow<\/a> and reroutes it through one of its secured servers. Additional encryption ensures that no one can take a look at what you&#8217;re up to online.<\/p>\n<p>A hacker trying to spy on your information via an infected public Wi-Fi network will only see a meaningless gibberish. With current technology, it&#8217;s nearly impossible to crack the encryption and extract valuable information.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, rerouting the traffic through a secured no-logs server prevents your ISP from collecting your data, which is practised from the USA to China.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s why VPNs have become a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/security\/cybersecurity-posture-is-a-must-in-an-anti-cyber-attack\/\">popular cybersecurity software<\/a> for those Internet users who value their online privacy. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vpnmentor.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Follow this link for a list of best VPN services in 2020.<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Develop safe browsing habits<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cybersecurityintelligence.com\/blog\/90-of-breaches-are-caused-by-human-error-4820.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">According to research<\/a>, 90% of data breaches are caused by human error. People are still unaware of online dangers and aren&#8217;t up-to-date with the most recent cybersecurity practices.<\/p>\n<p>Hackers know this very well, and when they want to target a large business, they first target employees, which are the weakest link in the security chain.<\/p>\n<p>Most often this is done via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/security\/the-history-and-future-of-phishing\/\">Phishing attacks<\/a>. Hackers send out a bunch of emails offering a discount for the employees, or they pretend to be government officials requesting some information.<\/p>\n<p>One way or the other, it&#8217;s crucial to learn to identify these false statements and raise the alarm when confronted with something suspicious.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s why self-education is so important. Only by reading about the latest cybercrime techniques and defences against them can one become more secure online and prevent bad things from happening.<\/p>\n<p>These are just three easy steps, but they should be enough to protect your online valuables from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/security\/cybersecurity-posture-is-a-must-in-an-anti-cyber-attack\/\">most common cyber attacks<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Online safety has become a significant issue both for cybersecurity experts and casual Internet users alike. Cyberattacks happen daily, and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1812,"featured_media":30546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[49],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30540"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1812"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30540"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33233,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30540\/revisions\/33233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/30546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}