Quote from Matthew Whitewood on March 1, 2021, 5:42 pm

The physical self-defence threat inspired me to think about cybersecurity defence as well.
Quite a big topic on its own as well.
Like people making a career out of physical self-defence, there are people who make a living out of cybersecurity defence.

That being said, maybe we can discuss the fundamentals which give you an 80% defence advantage over others.
We know the saying

Your bicycle is safely locked if it's safer than the bicycle beside you.

If your bicycle is expensive, you need a bigger deterrent like 2 locks.

Power Dynamics in the Cyber World

The power dynamics is that the hacker only needs to find one path of vulnerability for him to attack you.
This is why even big companies get infiltrated and attacked.

It's also a matter of skill, investment and reward.
Skilled hackers want to maximise their time to get the most reward.
While the less skilled hackers go for easy targets with less reward and security.

Defending against the most common ways would allow you to escape being the target of less-skilled hackers.
Assuming that you don't have anything major to be targeted at, you probably won't be the target of very skilled hackers.

Cybersecurity Defence Fundamentals for Consumers

Maybe let's focus on consumers because that's much simpler.
I'm not in a position to advise on advanced cybersecurity as well.

Some commonly known points for defence:

• Use 2-factor authentication along with your password, especially for banking and more critical accounts
• Avoid Public WiFi's - Don't log into cafe and airport WiFi's if you really want to be secure
• Get basic anti-virus and firewall on your computers and phones
• Update your operating system regularly
• Use a paid VPN service if possible

 

• Do not open email attachments from suspicious, unknown email senders
• Avoid websites without https
• I personally like the internet browser Brave
  It blocks a lot of scripts that run in the background
• Backup your critical data in case of ransomware and data breaches.
  • Use automated backup if possible.
  • Have multiple copies of a backup, and don't overwrite your backups too frequently.
    Ransomware can be very smart.
    It locks your computer 5 minutes before your backup.
    Then you overwrite your clean data with your corrupted data.