THE 10 COMMANDMENTS OF YOUR DIGITAL LIFE...

We keep hearing about all the issues surrounding privacy, government snooping, ID Theft being on the rise (and even new types of ID Theft creating “Synthetic” identities). It is also generally accepted that the weakest link in the cyber kill chain is Dave.

Recently, in a moment of über geekiness, I purchased Google Glass (love it!) and couldn’t help noticing the news surrounding wearables and their potential impact on privacy, which made me think that it is perhaps time to remind ourselves that there are some basic hygiene steps that are worth remembering when managing our increasingly rich and evolving digital lives and those of our loved ones.

I bring you…

THE 10 COMMANDMENTS OF YOUR DIGITAL LIFE, according to @neirajones

1. Thou shalt protect your online identity as for he who steals from you thy good name may very well enrich himself (and make thou the poorer).
2. Thou shalt deploy multi-factor authentication where available and thou shalt beware of public WiFi networks, use a VPN where you can.
3. Thou shalt not reuse passwords across multiple online accounts and thou shalt never use ‘Remember me’ or ‘Keep me signed in’ options.
4. Remember to help others protect themselves online and thou shalt always question excessive requests for your personal information, including to those claiming to be Microsoft engineers wanting to fix your PC (and thou shalt understand thy risk when thou disclosest it).
5. Honour thy anti-virus scanning and updating schedule (and still, thou shalt not stick random USB drives in thy devices, thou knowest not where they have been).
6. Thou shalt not click on URLs received in emails or open unexpected attachments received in emails (ever, even if they are threatening or look like they come from your bank) lest they might contain malicious code (and if thou art so unlucky as to have fallen for it, thwart cryptolocker by visiting https://www.decryptcryptolocker.com/).
7. Thou shalt not post on social media what thou wouldn’t want to see on the front page of a newspaper. And thou shall not moan about privacy if you do.
8. Thou shalt not jailbreak thy smartphone lest thou may introduce vulnerabilities thou cannot cope with, and thou shalt not let just anyone have access to your home WiFi.
9. Thou shalt not accept thy neighbour’s social network connection request indiscriminately lest it could be a phishing attack, or believe emails from friends or family telling you they are stranded abroad and urgently need money.
10. Thou shalt not covet dodgy apps as they will harm you (and thou shalt stick to the approved app stores, and know what to do by looking at the ICO guidelines).

There we are, I hope you like them :) but please do let me know if there is anything that should be on this list, I'd love to hear from you!



As always, I thank you for taking the time to read this post, and if you know of someone out there in need of a bit of help, I will be running an exclusive by-invitation-only master class with my friend Dan Haagman on 10th and 11th March 2015 at Stoke Park (fantastic venue, easy access and only a few miles from Heathrow). It is entitled “Building Your Digital Brand and Becoming A Social Entrepreneur” and will equip anyone with many (free) tools and time saving tips... Thank you for spreading the word!

Until next time,
@neirajones

This post was first published on http://www.informationsecuritybuzz.com/10-commandments-digital-life/