November 30th is National Computer Security Day. This day serves as another reminder that computer security is an important part of workplace responsibility.
The Association for Computer Security started National Computer Security Day in 1988 to raise awareness about computer security issues. During this time, computer use rose in government agencies, businesses, and schools. However, few consumers were using computers at home.
Nowadays, National Computer Security Day has even more importance, thanks to the proliferation of smartphones and tablet devices. People tend to use multiple devices for the office, at home, and on the go. If left unprotected, each of these devices presents an opportunity for hackers, scammers, and identity thieves to attack.
How can you keep your devices secure?
- Scan your devices with anti-virus/anti-malware software every week.
- Keep device operating systems, applications, and browsers up to date.
- Use supported operating systems. Unsupported versions, such as Windows Vista and 7, leave security holes hackers can enter.
- Lock your computers, tablets, and smartphones with a password or PIN.
- Watch out for phishing emails. Be careful with clicking on links and attachments. Also, examine your emails for any odd-looking sender addresses, misspellings, and improper grammar.
- Use safe password management habits. Create complex passwords with a combination of capital and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. Also, store login information in a password management program, rather than typing in plain text in a Word document, written down in a notebook, or stuck onto your monitor with a Post-It.
- Turn on multi-factor authentication on your email and sensitive online accounts. For example, Microsoft 365 can send a one-time use code when you log in.
- Download software only through a trustworthy vendor’s website. Also, select enterprise software over consumer-grade versions. The former tend to set up more security controls and release patches regularly.
- Delete junk files as well as applications you are no longer using.
- Backup device data, whether it is to a physical device at your office, at a data center, and/or to the cloud.
- Contact our helpdesk if you notice ongoing system slowdowns and crashes. You can send support requests by email (support@swifttechsolutions.com) or phone (877-794-3811).
If you need extra protection for your devices, you can ask us for more information about our Security as a Service. It includes email security, web security, enterprise anti-virus/anti-malware protection, ransomware protection, intrusion prevention, and security monitoring. You can look at our Security as a Service page for more details.