October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month
With the month of October being in full swing, it means that is finally time to celebrate National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. This celebration brings awareness to the prevention measures you can take in order to secure your identity on the internet, as well as drawing attention to healthy device usage.
This year, the National Cybersecurity Alliance has developed a theme for this month-long celebration, “Own It. Secure It. Protect It.” This theme gives a sneak peek into the ways that you as a user can ensure your online profile is secured properly. Listed below are some of the best tips and tricks our friends over at the National Public Employee Alliance believe are the best so you can ensure you have the power over your security and privacy online.
Don’t Overshare – Protecting Your Social Media Profile
Due to the nature of social media platforms and how they collect and distribute information, it can be difficult to completely protect your information. Although, you can take additional safety measures to ensure your profile is as secure as possible, such as not oversharing.
Oversharing
As a user on social media, you should never be giving out too much personal information, such as your address, full name, or email. Additionally, posting pictures or status updates that include too much information about your personal life could be too revealing.
Privacy Settings
Keeping strong privacy settings on all your social media accounts can also be very beneficial to ensure that your personal information is not exposed all over the internet. Check your settings for who can share your posts as well, so that if a friend shares a post containing personal information it will not reach the hands of hackers.
Ensure Your Privacy Settings Are Up to Date
Updating your privacy settings, which were all mentioned above, is very important when it comes to protecting your identity and personal information on social media platforms. Simple information such as your birthday or the name of a relative can be key information to a hacker.
Although it does vary based on each platform, some platforms have default settings that you are able to adjust based on what privacy level you are comfortable with. Make sure you are informed about the different privacy policies on each social media platform.
For tips about how to stay safe online, read our blog posts titled:
- “5 Things to do After a Data Breach”
- “Best ID Theft Insurance of 2021”.
- “5 Identity Protection Tips”
- “Which Identity Theft Insurance is Best?”
- “How to Recover from Identity Theft.”
Check Your Apps & Accounts Frequently
It may not seem very important or necessary, but it is actually very important to keep tabs on all your social media accounts, as failure to do so can cause a very big problem in the long run. Reusing passwords for different apps and accounts can make your information less protected and make it easier for hackers to gain valuable information.
Get Identity Protection from National Public Employee Alliance
This October is a great time to do an audit of all your social media accounts and apps to ensure that your personal information is the most protected and secure it possibly can be!
For more information or help with obtaining identity theft insurance, fill out the form below and a rep from National Public Employee Alliance (NPEA) will contact you shortly.
