Top tips on how to secure personal data
Encrypt E-mails and attachments
E-mails transmitted across the internet are totally insecure and can be
intercepted, read and stored by other third parties. If you plan to send
personal, confidential or financial data cross the internet then you should
encrypt this data before transmission.
Use a firewall
A firewall will prevent other users from accessing your PC if it is connected
to the internet using broadband or other similar service.
A firewall will prevent other users from:
- Seeing shared folders on your PC.
- Copying files to your PC.
- Copying files from your PC.
- Logging onto your PC.
Installing a firewall does not necessarily protect your PC. If the
firewall is disabled or if some of the firewall rules are disabled then your PC
may be at risk.
Use anti virus software
An anti virus application will search your PC for harmful programs and will
either delete or disable them. A virus is an unwanted program which can do
any one or more of the following:
- Delete files from your PC.
- Disable security features that you have enabled on your PC, disable the
firewall for example.
- Steal sensitive info from your PC and send this to a third party.
Installing anti virus software does not necessarily protect your PC.
Your anti virus software will only protect against viruses that it knows
about and may not offer any protection against new or rare viruses.
Keep your software up to date
Even the best software products have weaknesses and failings and keeping this
software up to date will ensure that you always have the latest updates that are
needed to protect your PC. Most software weaknesses make your PC unstable
but some can be exploited by hackers to bypass security features built into your
PC.
Use your PC as a normal user
There are two types of PC user accounts, Administrator and Limited.
Configure your user account to be limited and this will then enable windows
to prevent applications that you are running from making changes to your PC.
This is the default configuration if you are using Windows Vista or later.
Configure your browser to use high security level
Your internet browser is needed to view internet content but a browser can
also be used to run internet applications. Set your browser to maximum
security and this will automatically prevent sites from running programs that
may be harmful to your PC.
Encrypt personal data
Whilst the measures above provide a high level of security this may not be
enough if you are storing sensitive and private information like bank details or
information of a personal or financial nature.
Updates, firewalls and anti virus software can only handle known threats and
therefore a PC is at risk until manufacturers identify a new threat and develop
a suitable counter measure and this counter measure is installed on your PC.
Also, the above measures do not protect your personal data if the PC is stolen.
To guarantee that all personal data is safe and secure you should encrypt all
the files that contain private and confidential data using a program which uses
strong encryption. Kryptofile is an example of a strong encryption program
which can be used to protect individual files on your PC.
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