Digital Spring Cleaning
Let’s do a digital spring cleaning! Here are seven simple steps to help ensure your technology is secure:
ACCOUNTS: Review each of your accounts. Using a long, unique password for each account ensures that if one account is compromised, your other accounts are still safe.
PROGRAMS: Keeping your devices and software updated ensures you have the latest security features installed and known vulnerabilities are fixed. Make sure you have automatic updating enabled on all your electronic devices. Also, delete any unused programs or apps on your mobile devices and computers.
FINANCES: Verify that your bank accounts, credit card accounts, investments, and retirement accounts are configured to alert you whenever important transaction are made.
DISPOSING OF DEVICES: Old devices you no longer need like old smartphones or smart home devices must be wiped of any personal information before disposal. Most devices have a simple wiping function that securely purges all personal information (or reset to factory default) before disposing of the device.
BACKUPS: No matter how safe or secure you are, at some point you will most likely need backups to recover your important information or migrate your information to a new device. Set your devices to automatically back up.
PARENTING: If you are a parent or guardian, this is a good time to review any parental controls settings you have in place for children. As children get older, you will most likely need to update these controls settings.
SOCIAL MEDIA: Review privacy settings on your social media accounts because these are a goldmine of personal information.
For more information here is a great article: https://www.sans.org/newsletters/ouch/digital-spring-cleaning-7-simple-steps/?