Online consumer security is under siege on a near-daily basis — from personal data breaches, identity theft and more. Alarmingly, only 10% of consumers feel they have complete control over their personal information. In today’s hyper-connected world it’s critical consumers practice good cyber-hygiene and take security precautions. The onset of COVID-19 and shift to work-from-home environments has exacerbated the need for consumers to be diligent about locking down their cybersecurity across all their devices. How can consumers rise through the ranks better protect themselves? Implement these ninja mindsets every day:

Mindfulness

A ninja is always aware of the world around them. When online, you should always remain aware. Don’t accept connections on social media from people that you don’t know and never click on links that appear suspicious or too good to be true. There are a lot of viruses that can attack your device when you click on malicious links. These links are often disguised, for instance, masquerading as a system upgrade or email attachment.

Know Your Weapons

Ninjas must always have the right tools to get the job done. In terms of cybersecurity, this means running anti-malware software on all of your devices; this should detect and remove viruses, ransomware, and other malware in real-time. You should also make use of an anti-phishing service to identify phishing content in websites, email or other forms used to access data and block the content, usually while also giving the user a warning.

Stealth and Camouflage

A VPN will allow you to move undetected through the Internet. VPNs enable users to safeguard their online privacy, fly under the radar and surf the internet in stealth mode with complete anonymity. A VPN works by hiding the user’s origin IP address, and prevents others from monitoring their online browsing activity, what websites they visit, what they download and what services and applications they use. Even if someone finds a way to access the encrypted communications, it would take them years and hundreds of millions of dollars to crack the encryption. VPN solutions offer protection across multiple devices and the cost of protecting them is literally cents per day.

Check out the infographic for more simple tips consumers can utilize to earn their cybersecurity ‘black belt.’

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