CyberSecurity

Ways to be Safer on Your Phone:

• Secure Websites. Try to stay on secure websites. The web address always has a s in https:// not http://. Also, right next to the web address, there should also be a lock symbol.
• Antivirus. Install an antivirus app on your phone. These can be bought for your phone or your cell phone carrier can have options. These apps help detect, protect, and remove malicious software (malware).
• Wifi. Be careful when using public Wifi. It can be quite dangerous. Do not use any sort of financial or personal information (credit cards, name, exc.) because that public Wifi could be collecting your information to use it. It is safe to browse the web or play games.
• Phishing and Spam. Try to avoid both of these things, however phishing is far worse and more malicious. Try to identify these things, and DON’T CLICK ON ANY LINKS if you suspect this. A few dead giveaways for Phishing or Spam are spelling mistakes. Also don’t trust the name displayed, it could be fake. Definitely don’t trust anything that is super vague such as an email addressed to a ‘Valued Customer.’
• Credit Card Information. Try to avoid saving your credit card into any sort of site or app. This is an easy way for people to steal your credit card number. If you have to put a credit card in to use the app, try putting in a prepaid credit card that only has a dollar on it. This way if someone manages to get your credit card number, they don’t get your personal information, and they only get a dollar. When you want to buy something, just use a different credit card, and make sure the site does not store the information.
• Passwords. Passwords are super important! They should be strong to prevent people from figuring out what they are. Strong passwords include a string of 8+ upper and lower case letters, numbers, and special characters. To help remember your password. Think of a memorable time in your life. For example, it might be ‘Billy was born 1973.’ Now we are going to take that and make it include special characters and make it more complex. You want to replace certain letters with things that look like that letter such as s ￫ $, L ￫ 1, and o into Ø (zero). Now you have a much stronger password, Bi11yWa$BØrn1973. That password in now a lot harder to guess. From here, you can do two things to make all your passwords easy to remember:
  • First, you can get a password vault that stores all of your passwords for you. An example of an app like this is LastPass. You have one master password that allows you to log in, and it makes complex passwords that it saves for you later.
  • Second, you can just modify your strong password with a few letters and the beginning or end for each new password you make. For example, if you are making a new amazon account. Instead of just putting in Bi11yWa$BØrn1973, your password would be amaBi11yWa$BØrn1973. The ama out front hints that it is the password for amazon, but you are the only one that knows this. This way it is easy to remember.