Cyber Hygiene: Strengthening Your Digital Immune System Through Routine Maintenance
Much like personal health hygiene, cyber hygiene is the set of best practices and routines that help keep your systems clean and free from infections. Practicing good cyber hygiene involves everyone, from computer and device users to system administrators and application developers, following the regular, everyday steps and routines that help you maintain the integrity of your systems and improve your online security. By thinking of cyber hygiene as something as essential as brushing and flossing your teeth, you can protect sensitive data and prevent unauthorized entities from accessing your digital resources.
Establishing Basic Practices of Cyber Hygiene
Cyber hygiene is necessary in both the personal and professional realms, but people often neglect good, basic security habits. Still, many of these routine steps are essential for helping you avoid more significant security issues, such as cyber threats that compromise sensitive data, disrupt operations and cause financial losses. For individuals, following a few basic security practices regularly can help reduce vulnerabilities and prevent malware, phishing and ransomware attacks from succeeding. Here are five basic practices that everyone should follow:
- Update your software. From applications to operating systems to browsers (and more), many software updates are released in response to identified vulnerabilities, and attackers will quickly exploit those who haven’t updated.
- Use strong passwords. Simple passwords or those that are easy to guess, like birthdays or pet names, are easy to crack. Don’t reuse passwords across multiple accounts. Do create complex, random and unique passwords.
- Enable multi-factor authentication. People may complain about this, wondering why, if they have to have a secure password, they also need to enable MFA. In short, data breaches happen often, and your password is just one layer of security. MFA adds another layer to prevent unauthorized users from accessing your accounts — even if your password has been stolen. Businesses also use MFA to validate user identities and provide appropriate access to authorized users.
- Back up your data. There are multiple external hardware options and cloud storage solutions available. Find something that works for you, use it and test it. If your hardware fails or an attacker steals your data, it won’t help to have a backup solution that you aren’t using or can’t restore from.
- Exercise caution. Malicious actors send convincing emails, text messages and other communications. Be careful about the links you click and the networks you connect to — it’s easier than you think to spoof an email, voicemail, website domain, or Wi-Fi network.
For organizations, these basics are still important, but the stakes are higher. Maintaining good cyber hygiene ensures business continuity, safeguards customer trust and helps ensure your organization is compliant with regulatory requirements, helping avoid legal and financial penalties. Basic cyber hygiene is a proactive way to minimize the risk of cyber incidents and their potential impact on your organization.
Choose & Use Security Tools
There are many cyber security tools available, targeted to different industries and to address diverse types of problems. However, several solutions make sense for just about anyone.
- Choose, install and continuously update antivirus software. These solutions can defend you against fraudulent and malicious sites, provide ransomware protection and even prevent advertisers from tracking you.
- Select and activate a reliable Virtual Private Network (VPN). There are multiple options available, helping protect you by encrypting your data and masking your IP address. This ensures your connection is private, protected and secure.
- Choose a password manager to help you create, store and (if desired) share complex, unique passwords, without writing them down or sending them over text or email.
- Activate a firewall. Firewalls, whether software or hardware, enable you to restrict outside access to your computer and any connected device in your home, as well as the data stored on it. They can help protect you from malicious traffic, but you still shouldn’t install unknown software or click on unknown links.
Together with basic practices, these tools will help you stay protected against evolving cyber threats and maintain a high level of overall digital hygiene.
Beyond the Basics of Cyber Hygiene
If you’re already doing all the basics, don’t stop! Here are a few more advanced habits you can use to further improve your cyber hygiene and ensure a bright cyber smile:
- Regularly audit your digital footprint, reviewing the permissions you’ve granted to apps and websites. You might be surprised by all the places you are currently signed in to or which websites have stored your payment data! Minimizing unnecessary permissions and access can significantly reduce your exposure to breaches or unauthorized data collection. Regularly revoking outdated or excessive permissions helps tighten your overall security and protect your sensitive information.
- Monitor for suspicious activities. If you see something and think it looks weird, it’s worth checking out. That might mean noting a new device on your home network and tracking it down, flagging (and investigating) an unknown charge on your credit card, or verifying a payment change notification. A few minutes of investigation early on could stop a minor incident from developing into a big problem.
- Run regular system diagnostics and cleanup to ensure your devices run smoothly and securely. Look for a guide on how to do this for each device and operating system you use.
- Run virtual machines (VMs) in an isolated environment when testing new software or browsing untrusted websites. This creates a secure, contained space where any potential malware or harmful code is trapped within the VM, preventing it from affecting your main system. This isolation adds a critical layer of security beyond those offered by standard antivirus tools.
Checkups Prevent Escalation
Good cyber hygiene isn’t a one-time effort; it’s an ongoing process that requires diligence, awareness and consistency. Adopting these basic practices and using some key tools can strengthen your digital immune system and reduce the likelihood of a serious security incident. Conduct a cyber hygiene checkup on yourself now to stay a step ahead of cyber threats and make sure you’ve got the basics firmly in place.
