Cyber Security Awareness month
Today we wrap up another successful Cyber Security Awareness Month. While the campaign may be over, the need to be vigilant and secure about your online identity is ongoing and requires that you be proactive in the fight.
Who are you fighting exactly? What do you need to defend yourself against? It is the unseen cyber criminals who every day actively attempt to rob you of your personal information by tricking you into visiting their websites, who hack your emails or steal your passwords because they want your personal information in order to steal your money, or your identity.
Here are additional tips to help protect your private information, reputation, and identity from cyber criminals:
- know exactly who is requesting personal information about you and be careful about who you share this with—try not to share too much
- be wary of scams and gimmicks— if an email or advertisement seems too good to be true, it probably is
- use an antivirus program on your computer, and make sure it is up to date. Antivirus is not a silver bullet; it won’t protect you from every threat, but it will protect you from most
- update your operating system and critical applications like Adobe Reader and Java when prompted by yours system
- only connect to trusted secure networks, and be careful about the information that you share while on those networks
For more great tips and resources, visit the Get Cyber Safe website.
Also, be sure to follow McMaster IT Security on Twitter @McMaster_ITSec where we share tips, alert followers to spam that is targeting the community and link to articles related to cyber security.
Paul Muir is a system integration specialist who focuses on security, technology and risk at McMaster’s University Technology Services.
