4 Ways to Prevent Hacking

Many people are concerned that their phones are hacked and their computers are hacked. These digital devices may contain our darkest and deepest secrets. Bad people are eager to obtain our information for their financial or political gains. We should assume that we are being targeted by hackers, regardless of our security attempts. Here are things we should do to avoid being hacked:

1) Safeguard our email account:

Email contains important text, attached files, images and other information. It’s still a primary way to communicate textually in a comprehensive way. Because it is possible that our account is hacked, we shouldn’t vent our emotion in email accounts. Any vitriolic wisecrack should be kept behind closed doors with the most trusted individuals. It is important to fully sanitize our drafts, before sending them. Technologically savvy individuals could use some of the information to create phishing email and net unwary victims. When entering our password, we should make sure to manually type the URL to make sure that we use a genuine website. It is quite easy for bad individuals to copy the design of our bank’s website and ask us to enter our important information. Our email account should be locked down with proper two-factor authentication. Even if our email account is highly secure, we should be careful about what we write. 

2) Protect vulnerable devices:

There are tools that can be used by hackers to scan the Internet for servers that have open ports. This makes it possible for people to shorten the time to perform hacking attempts. Poorly-secured devices can be hacked within days after being installed. Without proper protection, the chance of successful hacking could increase to nearly 100 percent. With a big botnet, many open servers can be detected. Our Wi-Fi network also needs to be protected. The latest security platform isn’t enough, it is also important to limit the number of devices that are connected to the network. Any new device that is connected to the WLAN must be approved by an administrator and when an unidentified device tries to perform a connection, the administrator must be automatically warned by the system. Sloppy device management can leave us highly vulnerable to hacking attempts.

3) Improve passwords:

It is quite common for average users to use weaker passwords. Making random-looking passwords is easy to do, but people find them hard to memorize. We should consider changing password each month, or each week if the threat of hacking is significant enough. Our attempt to change passwords can be negated by the fact that some older passwords can be reused, due to their familiarity. This opens an opportunity among hackers to access your information. Many passwords can be weak enough that they can be discovered using persistent dictionary attacks. In general, we shouldn’t underestimate the ability of hackers to access our accounts and steal important information. Users and administrators should know what constitutes a perfect password. Weak password is usually caused by underestimating the potential risks and people may lack the security knowledge. Problems can happen if our passwords are not sufficiently unique.  If we want to protect our online banking account, it is important to make sure that our password is unique enough. Common password construction will make it much easier for people to predict likely passwords. If we want to secure our accounts, it is important to avoid using popular formulas for creating “unique” passwords. Although even the most randomized password can be cracked, hackers won’t find it profitable to do. Even if on iPhone. It would simply take too long to defeat these passwords.

4)  Make sure websites do enough to safeguard our accounts:

Some websites simply don’t do enough to protect us. Very complex password is not enough, the website itself should be robust enough to resist attacks. As an example, user information could be stored in server without encryption and in plain text. Hackers will easily harvest these passwords, regardless of how complex they are. We should make sure that passwords are as secure as we think they are. It has been proven that average users are reluctant to use random passwords. Websites can compensate by introducing other verification systems, such as text message sent directly to users.

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