Several years ago, creating a Cyber Secure Home was simple; most homes consisted of nothing more than a wired or wireless network and several computers. Whereas today, technology has become far more complex and is integrated into every part of our lives, from mobile devices and gaming consoles to your home thermostat and your refrigerator.
Here are simple steps for creating a Cyber Secure Home network.
1 – Your Wireless Network: Almost every home network starts with a wireless (or Wi-Fi) network – this is what enables all your devices to connect to the Internet.
Most wireless networks are controlled by your Internet router or a separate, dedicated wireless access point. They both work the same way: by broadcasting wireless signals. The devices in your house can then connect via these signals. This means securing your wireless network is a key part of protecting your home network.
The following are recommended steps to secure Wi-Fi:
- Change Default Passwords: Change the default administrator password on your Internet router or wireless access point. The admin account is what allows you to configure the settings for your wireless network.
- Change the default name of your wireless network (sometimes called SSID): This is the name your devices will see when they search for a local wireless network. Give your network name something unique so you can easily identify it, but make sure it does not contain any personal information.
- Enable Wi-Fi Encryption: Ensure that only people you trust can connect to your wireless network. Do this by enabling strong security – the best option is to use the security mechanism called WPA2. By enabling this, a password is required for people to connect to your home network, and once connected, their online activities are encrypted.
- Strong Wi-Fi Password: Ensure the password used to connect to your wireless network is strong and that it is different from the admin password used to login to your Internet router. Remember, you only need to enter the password once for each of your devices, as they store and remember the password.
- Enable Guest Network: Many wireless networks support what is called a Guest Network. This allows visitors to connect to the Internet, but protects your home network, as they cannot connect to any of the other devices on your network. If you add a guest network, be sure to enable WPA2 and a unique password for the network.
- Use Secure DNS Filtering: DNS is an internet-wide service that converts the names of websites into numeric addresses. It is what helps ensure your computer can connect to a website when you type in the website’s name. Your Internet router or access point typically use the default DNS server supplied by your internet service provider, but more secure alternatives are available for free from services such as OpenDNS or CloudFlare that can provide extra security by blocking malicious or other undesirable websites.
If you are not sure how to do these steps? Please contact our ARANKISH team for assistance.
2 – Your Devices: The next step is knowing what devices are connected to your wireless home network and making sure all of those devices are secure. This used to be simple when you had just a computer or two. However, almost anything can connect to your network today, including your smartphones, TVs, gaming consoles, baby monitors, speakers, refrigerators, etc.
Once you have identified all the devices on your network, ensure that each one of them is secure. The best way to do this is ensure you have automatic updating enabled on them wherever possible. Cyber attackers are constantly finding new weaknesses in different devices and operating systems. By enabling automatic updates, your computer and devices are always running the most current software, which makes them much harder for anyone to hack into.
3 – Your Passwords: The next step is to use a strong, unique password for each of your devices and online accounts – the key words here are strong and unique.
If you are tired of complex passwords that are hard to remember and difficult to type – use a pass-phrase instead. A passphrase is a type of password that uses a series of words that is easy to remember, such as “I Love Chocolates”. The longer your passphrase is, the stronger. A unique passphrase means using a different one for each device or online account. This way, if one passphrase is compromised, all of your other accounts and devices are still safe.
If you can’t remember all those pass-phrases? Use a password manager, which is a specialised program that securely stores all your pass-phrases in an encrypted format (and offers lots of other great features as well).
4 – Multi-Factor Authentication: Multi-Factor verification (sometimes called two-factor authentication or 2FA) is a more secure solution than just passwords. It works by requiring two different methods to authenticate yourself.
- For example: When you withdraw money from an ATM machine, you are actually using a form of two-step verification. You need two things to access your money: your ATM card (something you have) and your PIN number (something you know). If you lose your ATM card, your money is still safe. Anyone who finds your card will not be able to withdraw your money, as they do not know your PIN. (Unless you wrote your PIN on your card, which is a really bad idea.) The same is true if they only have your PIN and do not have the card. An attacker must have both to compromise your ATM account. This is what makes two-step verification so much more secure; you have two layers of security.
- To stay secure, enable two-step verification wherever available. It uses your password but also adds a second step, such as entering a code sent to your smartphone or from an application that generates the code for you. Enabling two-step verification is probably the most important step you can take to protect your online accounts, and it’s much easier than you may think.
5 – Backup: No matter how careful you are, you still may be hacked.
If that is the case, often the only way to restore all of your personal information is from backup. Make sure you make regular backups of any important information and verify that you can restore your data from them. Most operating systems and mobile devices support automatic backups, either to external drives or to the cloud. For other devices that don’t, you may have to purchase some type of backup software or service, which are relatively low-price and simple to use.
[su_note]Please contact our ARANKISH team, if you need any further assistance. Stay Safe and Secure!![/su_note]