Skip to main content

1) Separate work from leisure while working from home. Separate devices as much as you can.

2) Use caution with emails that reference corona. Russia and state actors as well as organized crime and bored teen hacker are using the corona-19 events and distraction from normal security focus.

3) Emails requesting you to check or renew passwords and/or logins. These may even look legitimate or from known senders. See #2

4) Double caution from un-known source addresses and focus extra caution on attachments or links.

5) Ensure you wi-fi connection is secure and not the default. This is even more critical for more dense locations (apartments /condos /neighborhoods with close housing). Remember that a bad actor has tools to access your wi-fi from miles away.

6) Tools: anti-virus installed, enabled and the latest signatures. encryption tools.

7) Ensure you have the latest OS patches installed, applications are updated to the latest versions, and latest plugins            (to applications and browsers). Known vulnerabilities account for a majority of successful hacks by bad actors. These privacy tools help in your protection from snoopers.

8) Ensure backups for systems, files, applications. Use these on a regular basis.

9) Use secure connections to web-sites (using https vs http in the URL). This can be verified by the lock to the left of the URL in your browser. This is much more important when visiting sites with login and critical data (EX: banking). This prevents a bad actor from looking over your shoulder, as they are now.

10) Turn off and unplug devices that can listen. Smart TV, Smart Speaker (EX: Alexa), computer assistants (EX: Siri), and other devices with cameras and/or microphones. Bad actors are trying to constantly listen in on you.

Olumide Akinwekomi

Leave a Reply