Protecting Your Digital Treasures
We protect our most valuable physical possessions by locking our expensive cars in the garage, storing heirloom jewelry in a safe and putting the title to our home in a safety deposit box. But what about our most prized digital assets, like our social media profiles, online banking logins and email accounts? If we aren’t careful, those digital treasures could be at risk of being hacked.
Digital security involves the use of best practices and tools to safeguard our information and online identities. It encompasses everything from password managers to parental controls to antivirus software. It’s about preventing hackers from stealing data, accessing private information and ultimately ruining our lives.
To help combat advanced cybersecurity threats, businesses need to integrate capabilities and tools and establish structure around digital security. This includes a team and structure of roles and responsibilities, tracking metrics and ensuring accountability.
It’s also important to understand that no system or environment can be 100% secure, so there is always residual risk. This should be formally accepted by senior stakeholders and must be part of the organization’s cybersecurity strategy.
Often times, we don’t realize that our digital footprint is being compromised until it’s too late. But luckily, there are some low-cost, high-reward digital security steps we can take to keep our information and identity safer online. One of the easiest is to place a piece of painter’s tape over your laptop webcam, which blocks the camera from hackers and makes it more difficult for them to hijack your digital device.