Thanksgiving not only marks the start of the fantastic holiday season—it’s also a time to reflect on what you’re thankful for. One of the many things to be thankful for this holiday is cybersecurity, which has gotten more and more advanced as of late. Let’s check out some of the numerous excellent cybersecurity technologies and other quality options that make the “thankful” list:
Two Factor Authentication (2FA):
With two-factor authentication (2FA), you get an extra layer of security that hackers can’t easily access, because the criminal needs more than just the username and password credentials. You’re actually using it already and you may not be aware of it. Your ATM card is a 2FA method, via your physical card and your pin number. 2FA is usually something you know such as a pin number, password or pattern, something you have like an ATM or credit card, mobile phone or security token such as a key fob or USB token or something you are which is biometric authentication such as a voiceprint or fingerprint.
Password managers were created to make remembering dozens of unique passwords less complicated. Web-based password managers are recommended over saving logins in your browser, as the latter makes it easy to gain password access once a computer is hacked. When it comes to secure passwords, not only does a good password manager like Norton’s Identity Safe help you remember all those random characters, but it also adds another layer of security to your passwords.
SSL, aka Secure Sockets Layer, is secure shopping option. Sites with SSL feature ‘HTTPS://’ instead of ‘HTTP://’ in their web addresses- it's easy to remember- the "S" indicates safe. These certificates provide that safety padlock in the URL bar of a browser, along with the HTTPS (“S” indicating “secure”) in the address bar. To make it easy to tell the difference between safe and unsafe sites, Norton has created a free tool. You simply paste a URL directly into the tool and it will tell you how safe a site is.
Software updates are something to be thankful for, as they require very little effort and provide a whole lot of benefits. An update notification comes up on a laptop or similar device, and once the update is complete, the computer is much safer from would-be hackers and malware. Any computer that isn’t updated...well, that’s what hackers look for. A software patch is defined as a small piece of software used to fix an operating system issue, which is usually called a “bug.” They simply provide another means of keeping a computer updated.
Which of these cybersecurity technologies have you used?