Protecting Your Privacy

How to Protect Your Computer from Invasion of Privacy?

Hackers of the world unite! Or so it seems to be with the current state of online security. With cyber attacks and data breaches on the rise every year, protecting your computer and information from hackers has become a major concern for everyone.

Securing your computer is essential to reducing the risk of identity theft and protecting your privacy. In 2017 alone, almost 17 million Americans had their identity stolen, which resulted in the loss of $16.8 billion, or around $1000 per person.

While this statistic is shocking, there are many steps you can take to help protect your computer from attack. By using a multi-pronged approach, you can ensure your computer will be protected from the bad guys.

Use a Firewall and VPN

Firewalls monitor network traffic and have been used to defend computers against attack for over 25 years. By monitoring incoming and outgoing traffic, a firewall creates a barrier between trusted and unknown networks and blocks traffic based on specific security rules.
Both Windows and Mac operating systems include built-in firewalls. If it’s not enabled, take a look at your settings and ensure it’s turned on.

While a firewall can block specific traffic, the best way to secure and anonymize your traffic is to go through a VPN. By encrypting your data, a VPN makes it nearly impossible to decipher your online activities.

Install Antivirus Software

Along with a firewall and VPN, a trusted antivirus can keep you safe from harmful programs like malware, spyware, viruses, and Trojans. Antivirus software provides real-time protection against these threats and can further protect your computer by identifying and resolving weak points in your system.

Advanced packages like the System Mechanic Ultimate Defense suite can further optimize your system and block and remove malware. And by anonymizing your online activities, it can also protect you from an invasion of privacy.

Be Cautious of Emails

To avoid falling victim to scammers, it’s important to know how to identify and remove spam and malicious emails from your computer. But with hackers coming up with new ways to spoof email addresses and creating legitimate-looking emails, it’s no easy task.

Emails can be used to spread viruses and malware or to steal personal and financial information. Known as phishing, scammers trick users into entering their account details into illegitimate websites. To help people avoid this, financial service providers like PayPal go to the lengths of including information on how to spot fake emails in the footer of their communication.

Adjusting your spam settings from the default low to higher setting or ‘safe list only’ can help increase your protection against malicious emails. To avoid accidentally opening junk emails, set the options to permanently delete rather than moving it to the junk folder.

Passwords

The days of using the same password for every account should be long gone, but many people still reuse passwords for multiple accounts. Strong, unique passwords are one of the main ways you can protect your computer and privacy from attack.

Rather than easy-to-guess information like birthdays and pet names, create passwords that have no connection to your life. Use upper and lower-case characters as well as special symbols and numbers to build a strong, unguessable password.

If you want to take away the headache of remembering and thinking of new passwords, use a password manager to do the heavy lifting. These programs generate and securely store passwords locally. They can even encrypt your credit card information to protect against malicious software.

Updates

Software developers and device manufacturers release updates for a variety of reasons, but most often they help plug holes in the security of the platform. It should go without saying but it’s important that you update your OS, browser, apps, and other programs as soon as new updates are released.

Updates can also increase the user experience by releasing new features along with security patches. To avoid missing out on important updates, ensure they’re set to automatically install. This can take the hassle out of keeping your devices up-to-date.

Back Up Your Devices

Computers are replaceable, but more often than not the data stored on them isn’t. While system crashes can wipe out your data, another big risk is ransomware. When this malicious software is installed on your computer, it can lock out your access until you pay up.

In 2017 the WannaCry ransomware attack became the largest attack of its kind in history, infecting over 300,000 computers globally. While the attack was stopped within a few days, some estimates put the global economic losses at $4 billion.

To avoid losing your data, invest in an external hard drive to back up your system, or subscribe to a cloud backup service.

Final Word

In order to protect your computer from an invasion of privacy, you must first take steps to secure your information. The tips above are some of the easiest ways you can better protect yourself.

By using them in conjunction with a complete security suite like System Mechanic Ultimate Defense, you can be sure that your computer and digital life will be secure.

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