Prepared with care to keep you alert and safe online. No distracting dressings or pesky information in this one.

This dish is a healthy way to keep your eyes open and to make you check your gut feeling regularly when you’re browsing. Unfortunately, aside from all the amazing opportunities that the internet offers us, it can also be a quite scary place to send your personal data off to. Scammers and criminals are out there, even if we often forget about them in our online day-to-day.

Identity theft, the leakage of personal data or sensitive information, and software “infections” that can shut down entire companies happen all too often. A famous example is the WannaCry ransomware which attacked the world in May 20171. It spread to around 230.000 computers all over the globe, withdrew users’ access to their data by encrypting it, and demanded $300 (later $600) worth of Bitcoin for them to get it back. WannaCry shut down entire hospitals, making them unable to provide care to their patients, and caused estimated total damage of 4 billion dollars before it was shut down.

Interestingly, the weak point in the Windows operating system which the ransomware used to attack had been fixed by Windows two month before WannaCry started to spread – but unfortunately, many users had not installed the corresponding update. So the moral of the story is this: as dangerous as the internet can be, it’s in our own hands to take measures that help keep us safe. We just need to be a little mindful and attentive.

Danielle Smalls and Greg Wilson have authored 10 tips for how to stay safe online2. Although their advice is primarily aimed at researchers, who often become the target of attacks and handle sensitive data, this advice is useful for every internet user. The tips we want to pass on to you are:

Practice good safety habits

While technology failure or weakness is one factor that can put us at risk, the bigger liability is often sitting in front of the screen. Out of thoughtlessness, we often fail to pay attention and become vulnerable to scams or people trying to get our data. For example, don’t do a reset of your personal account in a public space where you tell the person on the other end everything from your social security number to your mother’s maiden name for everyone around to overhear. Don’t leave hardware with sensitive data lying around and if you have pieces of paper with all your passwords and accounts on them, be careful not to lose them. And finally, if someone calls you and asks you for an authentication code you were sent for your account or other sensitive and account-related information, be very careful. Real employees of IT departments usually don’t ask you for this kind of information, especially not out of the blue – but scammers do!

Check your privacy settings regularly

Unfortunately, many social media and other platforms have fallen into the habit of regularly changing their terms and conditions, along with privacy settings that determine who can and can’t see your information and accounts. Smalls and Wilson advise that you make it a regular habit to go through all your accounts and check if all settings still comply with who you want to be visible to and what your data is being used for. Ideally, this should become a recurring event in your calendar which might be a bit annoying and tedious, but can save you a lot of headaches.

Think before you click

Documents can contain so-called “macros”, which automatically execute in the background when you, for example, open an email attachment. Similarly, emails from dubious sources can try to get you to open a link, install software or log into a website – so-called phishing. To protect yourself, always check who the email is coming from: do you know the sender? Did you expect to receive a document from them? For links, try to check them before you click, for example by hovering over them with your mouse to see if the domain matches or by navigating to the respective website manually instead of just clicking a link. Check if domain names are spelled correctly because scammers often create similar, but incorrect domains like wwwpaypal.com instead of www.paypal.com.

Use a password manager

With the sheer amount of accounts we have to create nowadays, one of two things usually happens: You either start using the same, often weak, password for most of your accounts or you write down all your passwords somewhere physically or, worse, digitally. Neither is really keeping your accounts safe. A solution to this is using a password manager like LastPass, Myki or LogMeOnce. These managers automatically create strong passwords for all your accounts and save them under one master passphrase which then is the only thing you have to remember. Be sure to make your passphrase several words long – this still is no perfect system, but a lot safer than the alternatives mentioned above.

Use Two-factor authentication

Finally, wherever you can, rely on a two-factor authentication. This means that in addition to typing in a password (factor 1), you will also be asked to type a random code (factor 2) that is either generated by an app or sent to your phone by SMS. If you can, you should go for the first option, because apps are safer in this context than text messages. An even safer method is to use a physical second factor key like YubiKey, which you carry with you on your key ring and plug into your USB port when asked to provide authentication for your account(s).

Learn more

Do you want to learn more about computer viruses and online attacks? Then here are the top 10 worst computer viruses in history. Additionally, here are some more tips and an interactive guide to staying safe online.

Resources

1: Kapersky (n.d.) What is WannaCry Ransomware? Retrieved from: https://www.kaspersky.com/resource-center/threats/ransomware-wannacry [Accessed: 01.04.2021]

2: Smalls, D; Wilson, G (2021). Ten quick tips for staying safe online. PLoS Computational Biology, vol 17, issue 3. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008563