October is not just for Halloween; it’s also National Cybersecurity Awareness Month! Yes, it’s that time of the year to focus on how to make your systems and networks safe from cyber attacks. Of course, working with a reliable provider of IT support in Austin is the first step towards strong cybersecurity, but there are practices you can do on your end, such as:
Using Strong Passwords
As hard as it is to imagine, many people still use “123456,” “qwerty,” or “Password” as passwords. No wonder their accounts get hacked; it’s no challenge at all for cybercriminals. Thus, it’s imperative that you use strong passwords that aren’t easy to crack. Strong passwords have special characters and numbers, as well as a mixture of uppercase and lowercase letters. They’re also long, sometimes even reaching a dozen characters long. After all, every additional character makes it harder for hackers to crack your password.
Implementing Multi-Factor Authentication
Sometimes, passwords do get hacked, so it’s crucial that you have another line of defense like multi-factor authentication. When multi-factor authentication is enabled, you have to supply extra information aside from your username and password. The most common is two-factor or 2FA. Upon logging in to your account, you’d be prompted to provide a code which was just sent via text message to your mobile device. You can also get the code from an app like Google Authenticator. Ask your provider of IT support in Austin for all your possible options.
Backing Up Your Files
It sounds basic, but it’s easy to forget this, especially when you’re in a hurry. Nevertheless, make it a habit to save your files in more than one location, like an external hard drive, or better yet, the cloud like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure. In this way, malware can destroy and delete your data, but you’d still have copies of your files which you can use to recover whatever data you lost.
Keeping Your Software Solutions Updated
A lot of security breaches happened because of vulnerabilities exploited by hackers. In some instances, an exploited vulnerability could have been prevented by a patch that already existed, but unfortunately was not applied. Aside from enhancing security, updates also introduce new features or improvements, so it’ll be a shame to miss out on those. The good thing is that updates are usually automatically downloaded and applied when you’re online.
Applying these easy ways can improve your cybersecurity in Austin. But if you feel you still need the help of IT support experts in Austin, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. At Contigo Technology, we’re locally based, so we’re easy to reach, but our standards are global.Contact us now for more information.