How To Protect Against Hackers During The Holiday Season w/ Fareedah Shaheed

How to Protect Against Hackers During the Holiday Season

Written by: Fareedah Shaheed

While the holiday season can be a joyous and beautiful time to spend with your loved ones it’s also a season of fraud. While you may be searching for a perfect gift for someone you care about, a hacker is using this time to stack up as much money as possible by scamming you out of your money. And to do this, they’re counting on you to not notice their tricks. The less you know about how to fight them off the more information and money they can collect off of you. Today, we will learn the steps you can take action on to lower the chances of them running off with your money and personal information. Below are 7 ways you can protect you and your loved ones: Create good passphrases It’s better to create passphrases instead of passwords. This means that instead of your password being n!c3c@rt=823q it would be nice pillow pizza warming fear c@t34

As you saw in the example above, passphrases can contain spaces which act as a special character. This is a special character that not many people use and I suggest you start to if your account allows it.

Install a password manager A password manager is a digital program that securely manages and generates passwords, codes,

and passphrases for you. You can check out an awesome password generator here: https://1password.com/password-generator/

You have to create something called a master password to protect your password manager account. A master password is the one password that unlocks the password manager program that stores all your passwords. When creating a master password make sure it’s a super-duper secure password. Meaning it’s unique, random, long, and not easily guessable. You can use a passphrase for your master password or/and use a password generator to help. Some of the best password managers are: LastPass, 1Password, and Keeper Remember to not lose this password because if you do that means you lose access to all your passwords. For this reason, I recommend that you back up all your important passwords to physical paper and store it in a secure place in your house.

Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) 2FA adds extra security to your online accounts and makes it harder for hackers to get into your accounts

2FA means that you have to provide a second form of authentication when logging into an online account. This better proves you are the legitimate owner of said account.

This should be enabled on any and every account that has this option (password manager, social media, email, banking, games, etc.)

Application-based two-factor authentication is better than text-based authentication. This is because the code that comes to your phone is easily hackable compared to a code that is randomly generated in a 2FA app.

Check your privacy settings and disable what makes sense for you Most accounts offer a privacy tab under their settings section. Always take a look at that section and enable and disable features as needed.

Enable account alerts especially on financial accounts Enabling account alerts can help you a lot especially during the holiday season because it will alert you if anyone (including you) decides to purchase something using the card connected to the account. Having this enabled allows you to catch fraud quickly and get it resolved more easily. Always enable these alerts when available. Use a VPN and not public WiFi You should use a VPN while you’re traveling and using public wifi. Public wifi is not secure because hackers can see everything you’re doing when you use it. This is why using a VPN is important because it will make your internet connection secure and private. The most popular companies that offer this service are NordVPN and ExpressVPN.

Watch out for holiday scams If there is any time of year you want to be extra cautious of emails, deals, websites, and links it’s around holiday time. This is the prime time for hackers and fraudsters so make it a habit to scan and double-check everything you come across.

While the internet can be a scary place with a lot of hacking and fraud taking place, it’s also a very beautiful place. Always remember that security is more about protecting your peace than it is about being afraid. It’s important to practice a healthy amount of vigilance so you can remain as protected as possible.

Today, I want you to take action on at least one of the tips mentioned above and make an action plan to complete the rest.

If you really want to stay safe online, it’s important to know how to have fun online and how to be safe and secure at the same time.

Remember...it’s better to be safe than to be sorry and it’s better to take small steps towards your security than none at all.

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