When most people hear the word “Cybersecurity”, they’re usually thinking this is something for those tech wizards and all; and unfortunately, this leads many of us to think we’re not affected by it. If like many of us, you’re one of those people, you couldn’t be more wrong.
Cybersecurity is something that every internet user should pay attention to, be it an IT administrator or a Facebook user. In this article, we’ll talk about what Cybersecurity is and why you should be paying attention.
Contents
What is it?
In layman’s terms, Cybersecurity is the use of different processes, techniques, and tools to protect or secure your internet experience. Imagine creating an account on amazon because you want to do some online shopping, implementing cybersecurity would mean using a secure password for your account and/or implementing two-factor authentication so that no one else can gain access to your account.
Who is affected?
As long as you’re using the internet for anything from shopping to texting, cybersecurity should be a concern to you. Attackers don’t know limits and therefore can use anyone in order to get to what they want, whoever is affected in that process be damned. So even when you’re not the target of an attack, you can still be a victim of an attack.
What can be affected?
In this day and age, any device that connects to the internet can be hacked/affected. Not only your laptop, phone, desktop, or server, but also your personal accounts like social media, email account, to mention but a few. And as the Internet-Of-Things continues to blossom, your fridge, microwave, thermostat, and the likes are also becoming more and more vulnerable to attacks.
Phewww right? I know it seems like it’s been only bad news but if you got to this point I promise this article is meant to get you started on your cybersecurity journey.
How to get started
The first thing you need to do after reading this article is to identify everything you have that can be hacked or can be used to hack you. Look out for things like;
- Personal devices e.g phone, tablet, laptop, e.t.c
- Social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, e.t.c
- Email accounts like Gmail, Yahoo, e.t.c
- Ecommerce website accounts e.g Jumia, Amazon, e.t.c.
- Entertainments platforms accounts, e.g NetFlix, Spotify, e.t.c
- Who else has access to these resources?
- How many times have you reused the same password and email for these accounts?
Now that you know how vulnerable you are, you should;
- Change passwords for all your accounts, it is advisable to use strong, long, and complex passwords. If you can memorize your password then it’s probably not strong enough, so it is advisable to use a password manager so that you can forget the trouble of having to memorize all those complex passwords.
- Enable two-factor authentication for your accounts where it’s possible. This can be either a PIN, fingerprint, or even FaceID
- With new complex passwords and two-factor authentication enabled, you’re now sure that only YOU have access to your account. This is because only you know your new password and PIN or have access to the device that you used for the two-factor authentication.
- Check and ensure that you have up-to-date software and the lastest patches for all your devices.
- Install a trusted anti-virus software on your devices.
- Make sure that suggested firewalls for your devices are activated.
Conclusion
Now that we’ve come to the end of our article it doesn’t mean that you’re safe but it means that you’ve at least started your cybersecurity journey and have implemented some base security measures.
Over the next articles, we’ll be giving tips on how to secure more specific parts of your online life so be on the lookout for every new article.