Home web safety is more vital than ever. With so many terrible criminal acts, such as data theft, scamming, and even grooming the vulnerable, you need to keep ahead of criminals this year.
Hire Experts if You Aren’t Sure
It can be a challenge learning about networks, even small home ones. And this puts your home network at risk. You can get scammed, hacked, or even have someone access your Wi-Fi using generic credentials. However, you can hire a managed IT service to provide security. Most businesses use these companies. But you can also hire managed IT services for the home these days. They will provide updates, backup, and proactive monitoring of your network.
Assess Your Password Strength
Passwords are a simple yet effective tool for web safety. Studies show that 30% of people that are “hacked” use weak passwords such as “1234” and “abcd.” Creating strong passwords can be a challenge, especially if you have many different sites. This is because it’s never a good idea to use the same password for more than one site. Or to use personal data, like your birthday. You can use a password manager like LastPass or your web browser’s built-in one.
Tell Your Kids the “Three C’s” of Home Web Safety
One of the biggest reasons to learn what you can about home web safety is to protect your kids. And this can be a challenge. But you can teach them about the “three C’s” of web safety:
- Content: protect against spam ads, hateful content, or sexual material.
- Conduct: teach kids to report harassment and never share inappropriate images.
- Contact: teach your kids about personal data and report arranging meetings.
You cannot watch your kids all day, every day. So teaching them about web safety is vital. For some extra peace of mind, you can install web monitoring apps like FamilyTime and SentryPC.
Make Sure to Log Out of Accounts
Staying logged into accounts is a surefire way to have your data stolen. Even at home, you never know who exactly is watching. For example, you may have contractors in, and someone could be looking for data. Or you could even be hacked via your router, laptop, or PC. If you are hacked and still logged in, the hacker will have access to everything. So make sure you log out manually. And set all apps to log out automatically if they have the option to do so in settings.
Be Cautious when Downloading
Downloading is a major cause of malware on your devices. And often, it isn’t your fault. You may think you are downloading something genuine. But some malicious hackers actually copy entire websites. And they are good at what they do. But downloads also extend to email attachments. Never download an attachment from someone you don’t know. And for extra security, install a good malware program like Malwarebytes, as these will automatically scan your downloads.
Summary
Just doing the basics of home web safety gives you a huge leap in protection. You can hire experts for some help. But you can also use strong passwords and be careful about downloads.
