Information Security Tips

Owned by Timothy Pinkham
Last updated: Mar 17, 2023
3 min read

Introduction

The best way to protect your personally identifiable information (PII) and computer data is to live preventively.

This page offers tips for protecting yourself and your data.

Find more tips at the website of the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team.

Related Topics

Safe Computing

About Phishing Attacks

Computer Tips

Physical Laptop Security

  • Lock it up, and don’t leave it out.
  • If you do leave it out, lock it down.

User Account Password

  • Don’t use blank passwords, simple passwords (“password”, “password1”, “John316”), short passwords, or passwords containing recognizable patterns (lines from movies, books, or songs; common phrases).
  • Use longer passphrases, especially strings of 4-7 random unrelated words ("octopUsforkLiFtmilitaryabStraCTtubular").
  • Incorporate uppercase and lowercase letters, and numbers.
  • Never share your password with anyone, or write it down where it could be found.

Software and OS Updates

Set your computer to automatically install the critical updates and patches for your operating system (Windows and Mac OS ) and antivirus and malware applications. Your computer is vulnerable when these applications are out of date. Use the latest versions.


Firewall

Keep your computer's Firewall turned on.


Enable the Screen Saver and Screen Saver Lock

  • Set the screensaver to activate and lock after 5, 10, 15 minutes of inactivity.
  • Lock the screen so no one can use your computer when you’re not there.

Back up your data.

Privacy Tips

How Anonymous Are You?

Typically the following types of information are collected automatically:

  • IP Address
  • Domain Name
  • OS and Software details
  • Information about the pages you are visiting


Choose wisely which websites you visit.

Malicious sites leave parasites.

There’s no such thing as safe anonymous file sharing. Avoid P2P and distributed filesharing. Torrent, Kazaa, Gnutella, Morpheus and dozens of other file sharing networks exist. Most are free. And all are rife with trojans, viruses, worms, adware, spyware, and every other form of malicious code.

For more information, visit http://antivirus.about.com/od/securitytips/a/safetytips.htm.


Personal Information

  • Choose wisely which websites to give your personal information to (address, password, credit card information).
  • Browsing the web? Look for https://. The "s" means a "secure" connection. If there is no "https," don't enter your personal information.


Social Media

Be careful when posting publicly on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Every time you post something about your life, you are providing personal information that can be exploited.


Mobile Devices

Don't leave your smartphone in the taxi or on the airplane. Make a habit of checking every time you move from one place to another to make sure you know where your phone is. Unauthorized access to your mobile device is a serious threat to your personal information.

Email Tips

Address Spoofing

Not all email is who is says it is from, sometime it is forged. Spoofing is a technique commonly used for spam and phishing to hide the origin of an email message. (wikipedia.org)


Phishing

Phishing is the fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an email. Communications purporting to be from reputable organizations or IT Administrators are commonly used to lure unsuspecting users. Phishing attempts often direct users to send a reply or enter details at a fake website whose appearance is almost identical to the legitimate website expected.

Be alert. Protect yourself. Enable 2-step verification on your email account.


Email scams often place links in messages and they try any number of techniques just to get you to click on the link. Clicking on an unknown link may seem harmless, but it makes you vulnerable. Email scams frequently place links in messages that appear to come from a service that you trust, like your bank, credit card company, or social networking site. To make these phishing e-mail messages look even more legitimate, the scam artists may place a link in them that appears to go to the legitimate Web site, but actually takes you to a phony scam site or possibly a pop-up window that looks exactly like the official site.(wikipedia.org)


Email Attachments

Attachments are a highly exploited feature of email to spread malicious code. Know the source of the attachment. If it seems weird, it is. Don’t open it. Check with the source. (US-CERT.gov)