Lets be honest, the Covid 19 pandemic has changed the way we work and also the way businesses operate. If you remember, in the bid to curb the spread of the virus health experts advised us to stop any face to face interactions were possible, this resulted in businesses allowing their worker to do remote working. This was good, but the downside to it was that it increased the size of the surface cyber attackers could exploit. A study conducted by the deep instinct shows an increase of 653% in malicious activities in July 2020 compared to July 2019. This shows how vulnerable we are to cybercriminals. it is more important now to take action and protect ourselves during such times as Covid 19 may be here to stay.

🔏What is cybersecurity

Now lets try and build an understanding around Cybersecurity. The oxford dictionaries defined cybersecurity as the state of being protected against the criminal or unauthorized use of electronic data, or the measures taken to achieve this, (measures taken to achieve the state of being protected against crime). Cyber security encompasses the technologies, processes and practices that are put in place to provide protection from cyber-attacks that are designed to inflict harm against a network system or access data without authorization, this is according to nouveau.

Now this is something I m scared of unauthorized access to my digital files and data. The fear was amplified during my attachment period at a local bank. As part of my learning my supervisors had to explain to me why we need to protect customer information and how do we do that as a bank. Coincidentally that year there was rise in bank card cloning frauds in Zimbabwe were lot of the bank customers lost a lot of money to these criminals.

At individual level this is a wide topic ranging from password and pin protection of you things (bank cards, phones and computers) to not opening any suspicious emails. Most companies hire a specialist to do this for them which is good and it protect the company’s data and also client information. Well most individuals are prone to cyber attacks as they don’t put much thought into it. You see someone picking a flash drive and the next thing he/she does is to plug that on his/her computer to check what on that drive, maybe its because they do not understand what cybercrime is and how it works.

🦹‍♂️Cyber Crime

Again the oxford dictionaries defines cybercrime as criminal activities carried out by means of computers or the internet. kaspersky.com defines cybersecurity as criminal activities that target or uses a computer, a computer network or a networked device.

cybercriminals can either be organized organizations with highly skilled personnel or they can be novice hackers, who usually damage computers for profit goals. Cybercriminals are any one how gains unauthorized access to data either by hacking as is the common way or by just using a computer with data they are not supposed to have access to. Take this example a office cleaner checking his/her CEO’s emails on his/her bosses computer without permission to do that. It might not be just a cleaner it might be any one in the organization doing that, the marketing manager or the sales rep or even the CEO’s spouse.

➕Benefits of Cybersecurity

Like any other mitigatory measure cybersecurity has it benefits. Amongst many these are some of the benefits that cybersecurity brings to the table.

The number one benefit of cybersecurity is that it prevents individual and company data from being stolen. There is a lot that a cybercriminal can use your data for, he/she can use it to blackmail, to use your banking credentials, to spy on you, even identity theft etc which is unethical.

The other benefit of cybersecurity is that it identifies the flaws and weak entities that could aid an attacker in gaining access to the network or data. As the saying goes prevention is better than cure, a good cybersecurity management system helps you identify those loop holes in which promote unauthorized access to private data. for instance you should password protect your accounts, mobile phones and computers as that may safe you a lot of work.

Another benefit is that cybersecurity gives you a sense of protection which is good for your mental health. Imagine constantly worrying that someone is going to see those text messages on your phone when ever they touch it, but when there is a password or any protection that doesn’t allow anyone to have access to the phone you will be at peace truly.

📝Cybersecurity tips and good practices at personal level.

🎯Use strong passwords

This is one of the most shared advice. don’t be lazy when it comes to creating passwords. Yes there are many accounts and devices that need password protection and you might be tempted to use a easy to remember password, well at least make it complicated use a combination of special characters, numbers and letters use also small and capital letters to make the password as strong and complicated as you can.

👩‍💻Keep software up to date

This is a challenge to most of us. We believe as long a software is still working fine there is no need to update it. Is it really worth it not to update a software and later suffer a cyberattack? Some software updates don’t require much from us, usually they just increase the cost of data\internet and space if its something you cost.

📧Be suspicious of unexpected emails

This is also one of the most used attack and to make it worse it targets corporate workers as they are the ones that use emails most of the time. For one to be immune to this you have to train your eye to spot any misspelt words on any link and never open any link that you didn’t look for and those you don’t know where they are coming from. Just don’t open any suspicious links either sent via email, WhatsApp, Facebook, etc.

📶Connect to secure networks

This one usually is another important tip. We are usually excited when we use open networks especially WIFI networks. Maybe because we like free internet but through those networks attackers can use them to attack any vulnerable devices on the network. If you are one of them too bad you will suffer. Try to avoid such unsecure networks, it might save you a lot of hustle.

📰Keep up with the news in your area

This gives you an upper hand. You stay inform about what attackers are up to. For instance when card cloning was rampant back in 2018 banks warned their clients about the threat and they did so through various media platforms, they also shared how to report cases and how you can be assisted. To that was important as the education made me more aware of what’s happening around me especially when using banking credentials. So it might just save you to take hint from your local news broadcasters and social media.