Why you should protect your equipment especially at Christmas

During holidays, where there are more movements, more purchases on the Internet, and also where we spend more time connected, it is when hackers will take advantage of it to launch their attacks. It is logical to think that, for example, they send emails posing as an online store, since that is when we make the most purchases.

To avoid this, to reduce the risk of cyberattacks, we must protect the devices. It does not matter if we are talking about a computer, mobile, or any device that we have at home. They must be updated at all times, as it is the best way to correct vulnerabilities. But also, whenever possible, we must install a good antivirus that detects malware.

But beyond this that we mentioned, beyond having the devices updated and with a good antivirus, without a doubt something that cannot be missing is common sense. And is that most security attacks are going to require you to make a mistake. For example opening a dangerous email, downloading a file from a page that is not secure, installing a program from unofficial sources ...

In short, protecting devices at Christmas means taking even more precautions than we usually take during the rest of the year. Just as attackers are going to enhance methods to steal data or passwords, we must also further improve security.

Why turning off devices helps security

However, improving security at Christmas is not just installing an antivirus or updating equipment. There is a point with which many security researchers agree: turn off the devices that we are not going to use. Here we can mention some clear examples.

Let's think about our router and say that we are going to spend the holidays in another city with our family and we will be away for a few weeks. Is it convenient to have the device on all this time if we are not going to use it? Many cybersecurity experts indicate that it is precisely in these periods of time that hackers can take advantage of to launch attacks and break the security of the router. At the end of the day, they will have more time available and, furthermore, the victim will not notice anything.

But we must also think about these types of devices in our company or workplace. We will be away for many days and we do not know if there could be a cyber attack of some kind. A clear example is a ransomware, which takes advantage of vulnerabilities that may appear at any given time and thus be able to encrypt files and systems to demand a ransom in return. Also, you need to improve security when working in the cloud, as many attacks go out there.

In short, protecting devices at Christmas is very important. It is also important to do it the rest of the year, but you have to do it more at certain times such as holidays. This will help improve security and prevent many attacks that could compromise us.