workers, students: how to secure your devices?

Step 2: better safe than sorry.

If you have read the first blog of our series (if not, read it here), by now you should have updated your phone (how many versions did you skip before today?), and did you also update your PC, fridge, and Internet router. You also changed your “Password”, “[Your cat's name]”, “12345678” and “[Your girlfriend's name]” passwords.

Next up: preventing you from having to bash your head into a wall chanting: “I should have! I knew this would happen, but I left it too late.”

So.

Plan back-ups!

And test them regularly. Why? In our current consumption-driven society things do break. They tend to do it more often than they used to. Add to that the tendency to crash at the worst moments, so knowing you can restore files, pictures, digital insurance policies and other stuff you’d rather not lose is a must.

In case your phone gets stolen or breaks down, knowing you activated the ability to make your new one be exactly like your old one was is also nice.

Hence, make back-ups. Modern operating systems have the option embedded, so all you need to do is activate it.

Isolate your smart devices.

Why? Because unfortunately way too many of those devices do not care for cybersecurity as much as we do. So, if you do like the ups and want to reduce the downs, connect your smart devices to your guest Wi-Fi network for Internet access.

In that case, if they do get taken over and try to peak around, they will be isolated and should not find personal stuff. Most modern routers have this ability nowadays.

Free is never truly free.

Today, the only free thing is the sun. Everything else has a price. So does that free app allow you to enjoy online auctions? Or that free app to navigate the world telling you where all your buddy users are. You pay for those with data. Your data. Be aware of that when you use apps and make sure to check the settings to see if you can disable ‘tracking’, ‘use of activity data, or other means to profile or track you.