Ready for a frightening statistic? There is an online hacker attacker nearly every 39 seconds.
That means if you’re not using a robust cybersecurity application to protect your online security, your data could be at great risk of attack.
So what can you do to keep your online data safe? Here are 5 essential tips for how to protect yourself from hackers stealing your digital identity.
How to Protect Yourself from Hackers
Interestingly, knowing how to protect yourself from hackers doesn’t have to be complicated. Even still, many people neglect to follow these basic tips that will keep their digital information secure.
1. Encrypt Your Data
Most individuals or businesses are aware of the need to back up their data. But before you do that, your best bet for data protection is to make your data unreadable to potential hackers.
Do this by encrypting your entire hard drive or encrypting your data file by file.
If you’re unfamiliar with encryption and this sounds too technical for you, there is plenty of data encryption software available that will encrypt your data for you. Many of these options require a user to enter the encryption password before even downloading a file.
You may even consider encrypting your entire hard drive so that even if a device is stolen, your data will remain safe.
2. Overwrite Your Deleted Files
Think something is off-limits to hackers simply because it’s hit the trash? Not the case!
Many hackers can pull information that’s been deleted. Unless of course, that data has been overwritten first. There is software available for even the least techy individuals to overwrite (and thereby protect) data.
3. Safeguard Access
If you run a business, you already realize that not every employee needs access to all data. Another great tip for preventing online hackers from stealing your data is to implement privileged access.
This allows you to hide information unless an individual has the proper credentials and passwords to access it. But that doesn’t mean that once they’re in the door you don’t need to continuously monitor their access to ensure it is truly who they say they are. Our eGuardian solution allows your organization to implement Continuous Behavioral Authentication (CBA).
In the case of a cyber-attack, privileged access software and continuous authentication can also help you follow an audit trail to see where a breach occurred.
4. Get A Multi-Factor Authentication
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) requires users to enter several forms of information to prove their identity and protect their data.
You may have seen multi-factor authentication that requires things like, answers to a personal question, fingerprints, other biometric data, a password, PIN, and more.
Having several points of authentication can make it nearly impossible for hackers to steal your information. Not to mention, this can be an excellent guard for mobile devices. The next generation of MFA is Continuous Behavioral Authentication but MFA is a good start.
5. Be Wary of App Installations
If you’re not careful about what apps you download, you could be bringing hackers right inside with app downloads.
Some hackers go as far as creating look-alike apps that fool users into thinking they are downloading a reputable application. From there, they can install malware right onto your phone.
Be sure to verify that any apps you download are from a legitimate source. Reading app reviews can give you an idea of their legitimacy as well. Check your app settings after you download to determine if the app really needs to have your location information, photos, and microphone access and adjust the settings.
Protecting Your Data
Knowing how to protect yourself from hackers is just step one. Finding and installing a quality authentication software that provides Continuous Behavioral Authentication (CBA) is the next essential step in thoroughly protecting your data.
For questions about how Acceptto CBA can help you protect your data, contact us today.
