Security Tips

Given my recent post discussing the flood of online attacks recently making the news, I thought it might be nice to follow up with some safety tips for your online adventures.

1. When a site asks for information, always ask yourself why they need it.  If your signing up to receive a free enewsletter about knitting, do they really need your birthday, full name, and home address?  
2. At the same time, keep in mind who is asking for the information.  Is it a site you trust?  Do they have a strong reputation?  
3. Use a SPAM filter.  Most of it is just junk mail, but some of it can be an actual threat if you open it up.
4. Never open attachments from email addresses you don't recognize and trust.  
5. Never give out secure information over an email.  This includes links in emails.  If there is a link in an email, make sure it takes you where you think it should - check the URL or even the IP address to confirm that it is part of the correct site - one you can trust.
6. In fact, always take a look at the URL before submitting information.  Malicious sites often use very similar web addresses to the sites they are impersonating.
7. If you get an email request for anything secure, you may want to contact the company directly to confirm its legitimacy.
8. Use security software.  Anti-virus, anti-malware.   This does not need to be something you pay for.  My free antivirus of choice is Avast.
9. Check the URL to see if the site utilizes Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure.  This means the site uses encryption, and can be confirmed if the URL uses https:// instead of http://
10. Get creative with passwords.  Make them long, use numbers and letters, use special characters, use capitalization.  And make them unique - don't recycle.  If one account gets broken into, you don't want every other account to go down with it.  (ie - Do not use your birthday.  Ever)