There are some things that a four-leaf clover can’t do, and keeping your personal information safe from those wishing to steal it is one of them. Here are some tips published by the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency that will help you spend your time celebrating St. Patrick’s Day instead dealing with identity theft.
First, recognize and report phishing. Most successful online intrusions result from a recipient of a “phishing” message accidentally downloading malware or giving their personal information to a spammer. Do not click or engage with these phishing attempts. Instead, recognize them by their use of alarming language or offers that are too good to be true. Report the phish and delete phishing messages.
Use strong passwords. Simple passwords can be guessed. Make passwords at least 16 characters long, random, and unique for each account. Use a password manager, a secure program that maintains and creates passwords. This easy-to-use program will store passwords and fill them in automatically on the web.
Turn on multifactor authentication (MFA) Use MFA on any site that offers it. MFA provides an extra layer of security in addition to a password when logging into accounts and apps, like a face scan or a code sent by text. Using MFA will make you much less likely to get hacked.
Update software. When devices, apps, or software programs (especially antivirus software) notify that updates are available, install them as soon as possible. Updates close security code bugs to better protect our data. Turn on automatic updates to make it even easier.
(Source: https://www.cisa.gov)