Cybercrime is a pretty terrifying prospect. Most of us live a lot of our lives online, regularly sharing personal information and payment information. It is scary to think about the possibility that someone could hack into our computers and steal this information from us.

Luckily, it is quite easy to minimize the risk by taking a few simple measures.

Antivirus software

Antivirus providers are constantly keeping an eye on the behavior of cyber criminals and trends in cyber crime, so that they can keep their software updated to protect you against the most recent threats.

It can get a bit annoying having to update your antivirus software, but when you consider all that it is protecting you against, it is something that is well worth doing!

Some of the top antivirus software packages at the moment are:

• Bitdefender. You may not have heard of this one, but people really like it because it is simple to use and has top notch security tools. It is also good value for money.
• Norton. As you would expect, Norton’s offering is a great choice and has lots of additional features.
• Kaspersky. Kaspersky is a great entry-level option. It does not have quite the same range of features as Norton and Bitdefender, but it will keep your computer safe. It also has an option to cover multiple devices at once.

Browser Isolation

A lot of Cyber Threats come from your browser. Hackers will use malicious software to get into it and steal things like autofill addresses, login credentials and your bank and credit card details.

Browser Isolation means that everything which you do on your browser is completely safe, because the code itself is run in a virtual browser that is completely unconnected to your computer or network. This means that even if you accidentally come across some malicious code, it cannot do anything.

Knowledge and training

Good working practices are one of the most important ways to defend yourself against Cyber threats.

For example, a lot of malicious software gets into people’s computers via phishing emails, where a user is prompted to click a link or download something via email. Teaching people which emails are likely to be legitimate and which are not is a great way to defend against this.

If you are not sure about an email then always err on the side of caution and delete it. You can always contact the company that it claims to be from directly (not using any links in the email) to clarify with them. 

Look after your passwords

When you are setting passwords be sure that they are not easily guessed by anyone, and do not use the same password for every single website that you visit. If you do this, it means that all a hacker needs to do is guess one and then they can access every website that you use.

It is also a good idea not to store your passwords in a browser, as hackers can access this information.

Instead, use a secure password manager to store your passwords.