In the 1990s the World Wide Web was born and opened up an entirely new set of possibilities and threats. Spam was a major cause of email disruption and computer viruses wreaked destruction to corporate networks and hacking was a huge problem. Hackers could take your personal information, take over your online bank or credit account, and sell your information on the dark web for a lot of money.
Your online experience is more complex than ever before. You’re using your smartphone to shop online, make purchases online, use Facebook and even your IoT devices as well as internet-connected appliances monitor and record your activities. All of this information can be accessed by hackers, whether they’re part of a criminal organization or just a random automated information system audit idealist with an agenda for politics.
To protect against hackers, make strong passwords for each of your accounts online and use a secure password manager to keep on top of them. You should consider using two-step authentication. This adds a second layer of security that requires you to enter a code provided via phone or email in addition to your login password. Encrypt your hard drive to make it harder for hackers to gain access into your personal data even if they gain control over your device or computer. Also, make sure you disable ‘run as administrator’ on your computers, don’t root or jailbreak your phones, and close your computer instead of running all day (all-time running ruins your device performance and opens the door to cyberattacks). You can reduce your risk by using the best malware scanner software removal, uninstalling and data encryption.