Alycia Hibbert
Every week, Perdeby takes a looks at something you should have learnt in school to assist you in your everyday life. This week, we explain how to safeguard your information against outside threats.
Living in an era of increasing AI and less privacy, what is the best way to ensure your safety and awareness of hacking threats? Being aware of hacking can help you guard yourself against problems in the workplace and your personal lives. Here are a few simple ways to minimize the damage of hacking, and prevent it from happening again:
Reset all your passwords.
Typically, you can tell you’ve been hacked if you cannot log into your accounts with your password. Since most of us keep the same basic password for all our accounts, the ideal thing will be to change the passwords that use the same or similar digits and phrases. Keep in mind that the best passwords have more than six characters, contain numbers, upper and lowercase letters, as well as symbols. Remember your password is the first and foremost tool for safeguarding your privacy and accounts.
De-authorize those apps
Changing your password isn’t enough when it comes to apps that use that account for login or for its social graph. For example, if you log into Instagram via your Facebook, it is necessary for you to disable Facebook if your Instagram has been hacked. The best thing you can do to ensure your accounts and files are safe is revoke every app you’ve given access to.
Update and scan your devices.
Scan your drive for infection and malware. Hackers can get in via malware which is installed on your PC. In order to both resolve a hack and prevent one, make sure you have the most recent version of software for your computer and phone. Additionally, you can use your devices’ anti-virus, anti-spyware, and anti-rootkit that scans for malware and viruses that may have been the source of the attack, to remove the infected file system on your hard drive.
Backup your important files
If your computer or phone has been hacked, transfer and back up all your important files. Having more than one copy is a good rule in general. Copy your photos, documents, media, and other personal files to a secure clean drive. You can also make use of cloud storage, but make sure it is unlinked form the infected accounts. After you have saved all the important things, you can proceed to wipe your computer.
Wipe your drive.
The only way to ensure that your device is completely clean of malware is to wipe the infected drive, and then reload your backed-up files and trusted media onto your device afterwards. But still remember to scan your backup files for viruses before you reintroduce them back to your computer.
