Taking your laptop for an outing
Some features that you have off in your laptop while at home, should be turned on when going out to a coffee shop or a store. Those places, where you get free WiFi, are breeding ground for serious security risks. Most cyber criminals love to hang out there, waiting for innocent people to use their laptops.
Make sure you take preventive measures to protect you and your data.
- Turn on your firewall to restrict access to outside computers. Your firewall controls can be found in your laptop’s security settings
- File sharing is a great tool at home, but a dangerous one outside. Turn it off under the sharing settings on your computer
- Hide your computer by turning off the Network Discovery. This way you make harder for other devices on the network to find your computer. Go to Advanced Sharing settings to deactivate the feature.
- Whenever you join a public network, make sure to add it to your public profile. Windows operating system forgets public networks when you log off.
- One acronym! VPN -Virtual Public Networks –
Everytime you can, while using a work related laptop or for your personal use, try to do it through a VPN which comes with tighter security features.
There are other, more drastic, measures. The important thing is that you try to find a balance between your ability to work and your security. Nonetheless, safety has to be a habit. Unfortunately, we live in a world in which we can not lower our guards. To keep our information safe, to keep our personal data private should be a priority for everybody.
One final comment. Turn on your automatic updates. Most modern software is able to update itself if you allow it. Software companies keep improving their products to eliminate any weaknesses that could give hackers the chance to create damage. Keep up with those updates.