Click On (but Safely)
by Anthony Moore
It’s that time of year again, when Halloween decorations start filling stores, the weather cools off and National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM) kicks off. So take a moment to revisit the first article in last year’s NCSAM series, detailing ways to keep yourself safe online. And make sure you look for subsequent articles on other cyber safety tips, as they’ll be published each week in October.
Every corner of the world is connected, and often it’s a case of for better or worse—with the internet linking your life to those of friends, family and, unfortunately, a wide variety of cyber criminals. President Obama has designated October as National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM), a time when U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the National Cyber Security Alliance band together with organizations across the country to educate the nation on the importance of Internet security.
It’s a cause embraced by industry voices and the higher-education information security community, including Dickinson’s Department of Library & Information Services (LIS). So over the course of October, LIS, with the help of its cyber-security webpage [https://www.dickinson.edu/secure], will keep you up to speed on how best to protect your information from nefarious online forces.
To get rolling, check out these general tips to living a safer online life:
* Set strong passwords, and don’t share them with anyone.
* When banking and shopping, be sure sites you visit are security enabled. Look for web addresses with that extra “s”: https:// or shttp://. That means the sites take extra measures to help secure your information. Regular old http:// is not secure.
* Keep your operating system, browser and other critical software optimized by installing updates.
* Limit the amount of personal information you post online, and use privacy settings to avoid sharing information widely.
* Be cautious about what you receive or read online—if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.