The majority of us now have smart phones as standard in our pockets and a smart speaker in our homes, we all engage with social media platforms and we love to shop online.  But how often do we consider our cyber security when using this technology in everyday life?  Lets dive in and discuss some of the areas which are important to consider and new intentions to practise in your everyday life to keep your personal details secure!

The devices we use everyday, our smart phones, smart speakers, smart TVs etc help to make our lives more convenient we need to be careful as they can be easy targets for cyber criminals to target us.  Here are our recommendations to help keep you secure:

• Keep social media accounts private and only connect with people you genuinely know and trust.
• Remember only share information online that you are happy being public knowledge, no matter how careful and how well you setup your privacy settings this information can fall into the wrong hands.
• Posts which “generate” silly nicknames for you or tell you where your next holiday should be with your friends? They are trying to gather more personal details to help guess passwords and answer security questions, so just remember to avoid posts that encourage oversharing.
• Stick to well-known and reputable websites for online shopping, and always use a credit or debit card and never send cash to a seller.
• If it’s too good to be true, it usual is, so remember to choose the safest deal not the least expensive.
• Ever had that occasion where your TV or radio station sets off your smart speaker? Ever thought about how they are always “listening”? It is recommended that you turn this setting off when working from home or talking about sensitive information.  If it stores recordings, review and delete these regularly too.
• Smart speakers track your activity like the history on your web browser, so its worth checking this periodically for any unusual activity and then clearing the history on a regular basis.
• Keep all your devices up to date! Don’t delay your updates, do them there and then to save forgetting and this ensures your device has the latest security updates.
• With your always-listening devices, when you go away if you are in any doubt, just switch it off or unplug it!

Employing these simple practises can help to add an extra layer of protection between your private information and your technology and help you to stay cyber secure.  If you have any more questions on cyber security please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the Team here at MJD.