In today’s digital age, it’s more important than ever to take the proper steps to protecting your data and securing it against theft. Hackers are more adept than ever at hacking into your system and stealing your personal data. And as you should know, this is the first step in having your identity stolen and for your personal to be used for nefarious purposes. That is definitely not something that you want to get involved in.
That’s why you have got to take the necessary steps to protect yourself and your data from getting in the hands of criminals. The good news is that there are plenty of ways that you can do this that won’t take too much effort on your part! All you have to do is read the following article and see the top ways we have that you can secure your data from criminals or just technology break downs.
1. Back Up Your Data Early and Often
One of the first things that you should do that doesn’t have much to do with people stealing your data is to back up your computer’s data. Not everything with data security has to do with criminals coming to steal your data. You can also lose your data because of a computer crash or something fatal with your computer’s hardware or software. Make sure you regularly back-up your computer’s data based on how much you have to lose. If you do a lot of data creation in a single day, you might want to do a backup every night. Or if you can afford to schedule one every week, then that is fine as well!
You can either use the backup option that’s built into your laptop or desktop or use a third-party application that will give you the opportunity to have a backup stored off your computer. You could even use an external hard-drive that will hold your data in a safe space away from your computer. Even though you might not think this is necessary, it’s much better to have this backup ready just in case than be stuck without any of your data and having to start all over on a new computer.
2. Use File-Level and Share-Level Security
If you want to successfully keep out others from accessing your data, then you have got to set up permissions on all of your files and folders. This is especially important if you are going to be sharing a computer with someone else and you don’t want them to be accessing some of your files. This will differ depending on what type of computer that you have and what operating system you are working on. Just do a quick search on Google with your laptop make, model, and asking how you can set permissions on those files and folders you don’t want anyone to access. While you’re at it, you can check out some anti-virus software to install on your computer to have even more protection.
3. Make Sure to Password-Protect Your Documents
One of the most important things that you should do if you want to ensure that no one gets into your special documents is to password protect them. If you are using Microsoft Word, then this is a pretty easy thing to do. Just click on the Security tab and you’ll be able to set a password that anyone will have to enter if they want to get into the document. This would be an important thing to do if you have documents on your computer that have your personal information on them or some things that you don’t want other people to see.
However, this type of password protection isn’t the safest thing. The best thing that you can do is use a zipping software that will make your documents into one ZIP file that you can encrypt. This is much more difficult to get into if you don’t have the key to break the encryption.
4. Use Disk Encryption to Your Advantage
If you’re wanting to encrypt your entire disk to keep everything safe and under lock and key, then you have got to use a third-party product that will allow you to do just that. This is one of the best ways to keep all of your data safe because this disk encryption will keep everything encrypted that can only be accessed by you. They can even be used to encrypt the contents of a flash drive or USB drive, if that is something that you are looking to do. Depending on the product, you can even create a master password that you have and secondary passwords that you can give to other people, depending the level of access that you would like them to have.
5. Secure Those Wireless Transmissions
Did you know that the data you send over a wireless transmission is even more easy to intercept than that data sent over an Ethernet connection? This is super relevant for any of you who like to go into coffee shops, sit down, and pull up bank accounts or any other personal accounts. Hackers don’t need to get into your physical hard-drive in order to steal your data. They can easily grab your information when you send it over these networks. Therefore, think twice before logging in to a public wi-fi.
The best way to get around this and keep yourself safe is to not open up any personal information when using public Wi-Fi that is not secured. You should only be using Wi-Fi networks that use encryption if you really want to keep your information secure. However, if you need to be on the public Wi-Fi of a coffee-shop or any other facility, then you will be safe to just not open up any personal accounts that could be used against you by criminals, like your bank account.
When it comes to securing your data against loss and theft, this is more important than ever before. Even if you think you can go a couple of extra weeks without backing up your data or securing yourself, it’s time to think again. You never know what could happen, so it’s best to protect yourself right now!
