Thanksgiving weekend is one of the busiest times of the year for online shopping. With Grey Thursday, Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions many of us will be getting ready to buy online.
Would you leave your home without locking the door? In the same way that you should always lock up your home to protect your valuables you need to lock your data away and be mindful of its value and protect it when you are online.
To Err is Human
Bear in mind that as long as humans are involved, no system will ever be one hundred percent secure, or one hundred percent private (we do occasionally still leave home without locking our doors!)
However, there are lots of ways that we humans can take ownership and take concrete steps to protect our phones, bank accounts and computers (and thereby protecting their contents – our own data) which cost us nothing or next-to-nothing!
So, before you get online and go shopping, here are eight tips to keep you and your valuable personal and financial data secure.
Eight Tips to Protect your Personal Data
Tip #1
Email: Use two-factor authentication on your inbox
Did you know that if your email inbox is compromised an attacker can not only read your emails, they can use it to reset your passwords for social media accounts, bank accounts – and a whole lot more?
Improve your personal security by turning on “two-factor authentication” on your inbox.
Two-factor authentication adds a second layer of security when signing into your email account. It usually involves receiving a phone call or text message with a special code whenever you sign into your account.
If you use Gmail, you can activate two-factor authentication here.
Tip #2
Personal Computer: Encrypting your hard drive
Did you know that Windows and MacOS both have built-in full-disk encryption? The user just needs to turn it on.
Tip #3
Mobile Phone: Turn on your phone’s password protection
Thumbprint ID is better than nothing, but it’s often not sufficient – you can’t change your thumbprint if an attacker ever gets hold of it.
An attacker usually gets ten tries before a phone will completely lock them out. So if your four-digit password is one of these common ones, you should change it ASAP: 1234; 9999; 1111; 3333; 0000; 5555; 1212; 6666; 7777; 1122; 1004; 1313; 2000; 8888; 4444; 4321; 2222; 2001; 6969; 1010
Tip #4
Password: Use different passwords for each service
Don’t use the same password in more than one place. Pick a “strong” password.
A strong password consists of at least six characters (and the more characters, the stronger the password) that are a combination of letters, numbers and symbols (@, #, $, %, etc.) if allowed. Passwords are typically case-sensitive, so a strong password contains letters in both uppercase and lowercase. Stay away from obvious dictionary words and combinations of dictionary words. Any word on its own is bad.
You could think about using a password manager to save you trying to remember them – or maybe go old school – buy a small hardback copy book and record all of your passwords in this – as a hard copy it is technically “unhackable”. (Just don’t lose it!)
Tip #5
Texting: Send encrypted text messages
Signal is a popular free, open source, private messaging service. You can do all the things you would normally do through text messages, like have group messages and send photos and videos. Except that everything’s encrypted.
Tip #6
Web Browser: incognito mode is just not private enough
Lots of airlines are also running Black Friday sales and many of us now use incognito mode to book flights online. Have you ever noticed that a flight price has changed after searching it a few times in your browser? Based on the cookies in your browser, flight prices do go up when a particular route is repeatedly searched. The site wants to frighten you into booking the flight quickly before prices get even higher. If you search for flights in incognito or private browsing mode, the cookie will not be able to track you and you will be able to see the lowest prices.
Even if you are already using incognito mode (or any other browser’ private modes) the following parties will still be able to snoop in on your network activity:
- Internet service providers
- System administrators in charge of the network at your school, workplace, or wherever you get online
- Google, or whoever made your browser
If you want reasonably private browsing (as no system can ever be 100% secure), you could think about using Tor.
Tip #7
Browse in private with Tor
Tor stands for “The Onion Router”. It uses multiple onion-like layers to mask network activity. It’s free, open source, and fairly easy to use.
Tip #8
Search Engine: Search in private
If you don’t want to install Tor you can still search privately using DuckDuckGo, the search engine that does not track you.
DuckDuckGo isn’t as sophisticated as Google (it just does not have the same engineer resources), but it has a handy little a shortcut to enable you to get encrypted Google searches whenever you need them. How? You just need to prefix your search with !google
Happy online shopping to you all – and don’t forget to check out our very own Black Friday deals : )