Hacking occurrences are increasing, and while organizations are generally targeted, individuals are as well, since a lot of folks do taxes and banking online. Don't want to get hacked? Here are a few trail tips:
- Don't click the link. That's how many folks end up with malware getting installed on their systems. Hover your mouse over the link to ensure that it's actually going to take you where you think it's going to go. Cereally. Just a while back, we discussed here a recent incident in which an entire hospital's servers got encrypted because an employee clicked an email link. It's amazing how many people fall for that phishing scam. Don't be one of them.
- Turn on disk encryption. Many current versions of Windows operating systems incorporate BitLocker, but many people don't enable it. Some versions come enabled by default; if you try to boot one of my Windows 10 systems and don't know either of the two passcodes, for example, you can't access the content on the drives.
Consider adding small apps like Little Snitch:
As soon as you’re connected to the Internet, applications can potentially send whatever information they want to wherever they want. Sometimes they do this for good reason, on your explicit request. But often they don’t.
Little Snitch intercepts these unwanted connection attempts,
and lets you decide how to proceed.
Hope this is helpful to someone you know. Best wishes for safe computing.
Oh, and for Window 10 users annoyed about that push material that shows up on your lock-screen when you boot up (the screen before you enter your pass-code to decrypt the system), there's a workaround for that:
- Open ‘Settings’, then ‘Personalization’
- Open ‘Lock Screen’
- Change ‘Background’ to a personal selection rather than ‘Windows spotlight’
- Switch ‘Get fun facts, tips, tricks, and more on your lock screen’ to Off.
