As Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in February, CISA (Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency) issued a ‘Shield’s Up’ alert due to the increased threat of Russian bad actors taking malicious action against organizations and individuals in the United States. This alert provides guidance for being proactive in protecting your identity/assets. I will detail some information everyone can use to protect themselves but the CISA website has the full notice and guidance, please visit www.cisa.gov/shields-up
What should you do now to protect yourself?
1. Implement multi-factor authentication on all of your accounts.
A strong password is a good start to protecting your online accounts but implementing a second layer of identification like a confirmation text message or a Face Id in addition to your password will really give your account some protection. So even if your password is compromised you can feel secure your accounts are protected.
2. Perform software updates regularly.
Bad actors attempting these exploits are not stupid they keep up to date on what software is vulnerable and try to gain access via these vulnerabilities. Keeping operating systems and applications, especially your web browser, up to date on all your devices will protect you from known problems with the software you use. Enable automatic updates whenever possible!
3. Use a password manager (such as LastPass)
Utilizing very strong passwords can be a big help to securing your online accounts but you also don’t want to be using the same password for multiple accounts. If one of the online services you utilized becomes compromised and your password is accessed by someone they would then have access to all other accounts utilizing that password. Using a password manager will no longer require you to remember passwords for each site/service, the manager will store the passwords for you to access, this way you can have very complex passwords unique to each site increasing your security.
These tips are important to keep in mind no matter what is going on in the world but with the increased threat of attacks due to the Ukraine Russia conflict it is a great time to implement these suggestions to secure and protect yourself from any threats online.
