We’ve all heard stories of “unauthorised access” or more commonly “I’ve been hacked!!!” What this really means is that someone has had their privacy breached without their consent. This can happen any number of ways from leaving your computer or phone logged in and unattended or you use the Internet without any firewall to protect against malware and viruses or you simply don’t use smart passwords and someone has accessed your information.
Luckily, you’re with Freedom Internet. We take the necessary steps for you to ensure that we maintain our systems, infrastructure and access points with the latest security patches and firewall rules available. That means we protect you from people accessing your connection to the Internet but unfortunately, we can’t protect you from everything. Here’s some tips and safety measures you can take to protect yourself and your data while you’re online.

‍
Use Strong Passwords

‍
It is essential to use a personal password for all of your accounts to prevent unauthorised access. A user has to be more careful about this if they use a shared system. Apart from this, make sure to change passwords often. Consider using complex password that use UPPER case and lower case as well as Numbers (1234567890) and Symbols (!@#$%^&*). Be sure not to use the same password for EVERYTHING. And if it all gets too hard to remember try a Password Manger like LastPass.

‍
Carefully Read your Email Messages and Know the Senders

‍
Most users tend to ignore or neglect email security despite knowing about it. It is imperative to ignore email messages you receive from unknown sources…and DO NOT OPEN any attachments included in an email from a source that you do not trust. One of the oldest hacking tricks in the book is to send malware and viruses is through email attachments.

‍
Use Antivirus Software

‍
And for when you accidentally click on that file someone sent you, be sure you’ve downloaded a strong antivirus to prevent viruses, worms and others. This will prevent your computer from being hacked from both the user side and the network. Be sure to keep it up to date. Use Auto Update features for convenience and peace of mind and tweak your setting to make sure you do not allow any application to make changes to your computer without your OK.

‍
Keep the Firewall On

‍
If you understand the concept of a firewall, you should know its significance as well. This basically acts as a protective wall or layer between you and the Internet. Before sending, a firewall’s primary Freedom Internet Australia & Freedom Internet Ltd Page 2 of 2 responsibility is to track and scrutinize all the data exchanged between the computer and the server.
In instances where your firewall thinks there is a threat, a pop-up warning message may appear to notify you. Having a firewall turned on, you can easily stop potential threats in the form of a malware or virus.

‍
Browsing the Internet? Pay Attention to File Sharing

‍
This is critical if you are surfing the Internet on a Local Area Network (LAN) where the file sharing feature is enabled for unlimited users. To keep your data protected, you should disable this feature. If you do not want to disable it, share files and folders only with users and systems you know.
Leaving it enabled can make your system an easy target for hackers to invade.

‍
Maintain a Proper Backup of your Data Online

‍
One thing that you should avoid doing is surfing the Internet for important data on a computer that is infected. It may further create troubles as hackers can easily invade your computer to get unauthorized access to your valuable data and information. It is recommended to create and maintain a backup of all your data online. There are different platforms available to store your data on the server. Rest assured, such platforms are reliable as they offer limited or unlimited storage space for a specific amount.

‍