Beginner's Guide to Privacy and Security

Best practices and recommendations on how to protect and recover from compromised accounts and computers, use real-world scenarios to detail how scams and phishing emails are used and provide best practices on how to use the internet in a more safe and secure manner to protect yourself, your family, and your clients.

A Beginner's Guide to Privacy and Security

Trying to remain safe online, practicing good security and working to keep your data private is extremely challenging. This is made even more difficult with the speed at which technology changes, vulnerabilities are discovered, and attackers change their tactics. Just when you think you have learned the right techniques to keep your data private and your devices, email, etc., secure, another breach is announced, a new vulnerability is discovered in your operating system or web browser, and/or attackers come up with another scam/trick to gain access to your devices or information...all of which are out of your control. If you aren't tech savvy, it can be even more overwhelming. Since technology and attack methods change so rapidly, there are no simple answers or steps you can take to be 100% protected. This is where we are hoping we can help by recommending steps you can take to increase the security of your accounts and devices, better protect your privacy, and be safer online. Check out our "Security 101" section for a collection of the minimum security procedures everyone should be following.

If you are looking for a specific subject matter, click one of the topics below. We try to do our best to tag each blog post with the appropriate tags. If you own a small business, you may want to check out the "business owner" tag. The "scenarios" tag is real world examples of how you, your family, or your friends can be impacted by risky social media behaviors.

If you have any ideas, requests, feedback, etc., please visit the "Contact Us" page and let us know.

Posts related to:

June 04, 2017

What if my email is hacked & how do I prevent it?

June 04, 2017/ Logical Cybersecurity

Having your email compromised or "hacked" can be very frustrating and figuring out how to recover can be overwhelming and challenging. Let me share some of the tips I've learned helping others recover from a hacked email account and provide steps to help prevent it from happening.

May 31, 2017

What should I do if my device is lost or stolen, if I had malware/a virus on my computer, or if I have fallen victim to a scam?

May 31, 2017/ Logical Cybersecurity

If one of your devices (computer, phone, tablet, etc.) is lost or stolen, if you have fallen victim to a scam or if it was infected with malware (a virus), there are some steps you should consider taking to help limit and/or recover from the loss of private, personal and identifiable information (PII).

May 08, 2017

Macs, iPads, and iPhones are not invincible

May 08, 2017/ Logical Cybersecurity

The claim Apple devices (Macs, iPads, iPhones, etc.) are immune to malware and "hacking" just aren't true. Misleading commercials from Apple claiming , "iPads don't get computer viruses" do not help. Apple devices may not get "computer viruses", but they have similar problems to Windows and Android.

May 06, 2017

Fake Software updates

May 06, 2017/ Logical Cybersecurity

Attackers will often disguise malware as legitimate software. One of the more common tricks, is to mask malware as updates to legitimate software.

April 20, 2017

Updates and patches

April 20, 2017/ Logical Cybersecurity

Installing software updates and patches is extremely important and can dramatically increase your security posture. In fact, a lot of systems are compromised simply because people have not updated their operating system and/or third party software to patch vulnerabilities.

April 18, 2017

VirusTotal: a valuable and free tool at your service

April 18, 2017/ Logical Cybersecurity

What if I told you there is a way to run a file or URL (website address) through numerous different security (or antivirus) vendors for free. I know you’re probably quoting the old adage right now of, “If it’s too good to be true it usually is”, but in this case such a tool does exist and it is known as VirusTotal.

April 18, 2017

Antivirus Software: Is it helpful or too risky?

April 18, 2017/ Logical Cybersecurity

For many, many years now everyone has been told they must have antivirus installed on their computers, phones, etc. Today though, things are not so cut and dry. Some security researchers claim antivirus software puts your devices at a greater risk.

April 17, 2017

Only download apps from vendor's app stores

April 17, 2017/ Logical Cybersecurity

I would strongly urge everyone to never, ever download applications to your devices (computer, phone tablet, etc.) from untrusted (3rd party) sources. The best rule of thumb is to always download apps from the vendor’s store (Google Play, Apple app store, etc.).