Best Practices for Staying Safe Online

Your personal data is a valuable commodity. Knowing how to protect yourself and your information is a must in today’s digital world. Here are four easy ways to ensure your information is safe online.

Recognize and report phishing

Phishing messages can be in the form of an email, text, direct messages on social media, or phone call, and are crafted to look like they came from a trusted person or organization.

Common signs:

• Urgent or emotionally appealing language, i.e. Act now!
• Requests to send personal or financial information
• Uses shortened URLs
• Email address doesn’t match the supposed sender
• Uses incorrect email addresses or links, i.e. amazan.com
• Poor writing/misspellings

Report the suspicious message by alerting the organization or person using their contact information. Then, delete the message. Don’t reply or click on any attachments or links.

Use strong passwords

Strong passwords are long, random, and unique, and include all four-character types (uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and symbols). Avoid common identifying information such as your birthday or your pet’s name. Note: The longer the password, the stronger.

A password manager is a powerful tool for creating strong passwords for each of your accounts. It’s a safe place to store your passwords, so you only need to remember one strong password. Search trusted sources for a password manager, such as Consumer Reports.

Enable multifactor authentication

Multifactor authentication is an extra security measure that confirms your identity when logging in to an online account. It can be a code texted to your phone or generated by an authenticator app, or biometrics like a fingerprint or facial recognition. Go to your settings (or privacy settings) and look for multifactor authentication (it may also be called two-factor authentication).

Keep software up to date

Ensuring your software is up to date is the best way to make sure you have the latest security patches and updates on your devices. Turn on automatic updates when possible (within your device’s settings, under software or security). Not every update can be automatic, so it’s best to always watch out for notifications as well. such as from web browsers and antivirus software.