PASSWORDS
Passwords need to be complex and the recommendation now in 2023 is to go for 12 characters or more (including Upper and lower case, numbers and letters, special characters). You should also never reuse the same passwords.
Password managers can simplify the process: https://uk.pcmag.com/password-managers/4296/the-best-password-managers
No matter how secure your password is and how careful you are to keep it secret, the websites that you use might get compromised and your password might end up for sale on the dark web. To find out which password of yours might be compromised, you can use: https://haveibeenpwned.com/
Passwords are far from perfect though and it is highly recommended to setup Two Factor Authentication (2FA).
To setup 2Fa you just need an app like Microsoft Authenticator or Google authenticator and a website that supports it.
If someone gets hold of your password, you will get a notification on your device when they try to login, and, without 2FA approval, they won’t get in.
You should setup 2FA for any website that supports it (especially social media and shopping/banking sites).
But passwords are soon to be a thing of the past. They are being replaced by passkeys:
Google:
https://developers.google.com/identity/passkeys
Microsoft:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/security/business/solutions/passwordless-authentication
It is still early days, so not every website will support passkeys, but whenever you can, move to passkeys for even stronger security!
ANTIVIRUS
There is no sign of slowing down when it comes to viruses and phishing attacks. Ransomware attacks especially have increased exponentially.
To cater for this you need an antivirus. Many companies online test and review antivirus software each year. From one year to the next, things do change quite a bit. Gartner for example:
BACKUP
If you value your data, you have a few options…
You can save everything to the cloud (onedrive, google drive, icloud…) but, if you are worried you might get locked out of your account if it gets compromised or are just worried about privacy, you will need to consider a local backup option with a NAS (network attached storage). You could backup to a single external drive but that drive could get damaged (we see a lot of these), lost or stolen… and the content would only be available locally.
A NAS allows you to backup on multiple hard drives that will offer redundancy (you can set it for the data to still be fine with 1 or even 2 drives dead for example), speed and, depending of the model, remote access.
Of note: Synology, one of the market leader, has now placed restrictions on which drive they validate as “compatible” as they want to force customers towards their own drives, so if you buy one, do check the drive is compatible: https://www.synology.com/en-uk/compatibility
WI-FI
When you setup Wi-Fi at home, you usually trust the automatic setup and hope for the best… will it conflict with the Wi-Fi of the neighbours? will it be fast? These are the usual concerns.
What you should also be asking yourself is… is it secure enough?
Each Wi-Fi generation comes not only with a speed/range increase but also with improved security functionalities.
Not that long ago, the encryption used to be left to the owner of the modem and, as a result, for so for many, it was non-existent. Then companies started forcing WPA/WPA2. A much needed step but these are now fairly easy to crack these days, so moving to WPA3 won’t come soon enough. Sadly, devices need to be compatible with this type of encryption and you might have devices that are not (Looking at you Nintendo Switch!). Assess the Wi-Fi devices in your house, assess what type of security you have (WPA2 should be the bare minimum) and, if possible, move to WPA3.
There is two other things you can do:
- Hide your Wi-Fi SSID. If you live in a house surround by houses, you probably see dozens of Wi-Fi… yours doesn’t need to be seen for your devices to connect. As long as you know the name of it at the time of configuration, your device will find it even if it’s hidden.
- Use VLANs. If you thought configuring WPA3 and hiding your Wi-Fi SSID was complex, walk away right now. VLAN requires advanced networking knowledge but offers many benefits, if you feel brave, there are many videos online on how to set it up depending of which hardware your have.
