According to a government survey, two in five businesses (39%) have experienced some form of security breach in the last 12 months.

With more workers operating from home, it is now more important than ever to keep important data and documents secure, and by following these helpful tips you can be extra safe online:

Passwords

The easiest way to keep yourself and your data safe online is to use stronger passwords for your accounts.

This can include a number of things such as using capital letters, special characters, numbers and most importantly not having the password relate to you in any obvious way e.g., a family pet. Obviously remembering multiple passwords is not easy, but there are many free password managers available that can help with this.

Wi-Fi

For work involving data and important documents, it is paramount that you use secure and passworded internet. Wi-Fi has its own security issues. At home, make sure you have changed the default password on your router and changed the network name, so that it is not recognisable as belonging to a particular provider.

The best advice on Public Wi-Fi is to avoid using it, as so much of it is out of your control. Cyber-criminals can intercept communications between public Wi-Fi users and the public Wi-Fi router. This is known as a known as Man in the middle (MITM) attack and essentially means that a hacker can steal data, documents and even passwords for things like banking sites.

If you really have to use public Wi-Fi, then use a good VPN or, at the very least, only connect to sites that use HTTPS. Look for HTTPS at the beginning of a website’s address, which means the connection between the browser and the web server is encrypted.

Anti-virus software

Your computer is constantly of danger of downloading malicious code and malware which can completely break your device and leave your data in a vulnerable state.

Using anti-virus software can protect your device by warning you about unsafe websites and dangerous emails, blocking downloads and deleting the malicious code from your computer.

Make sure that your anti-virus is up to date and perform routine scans, ensuring nothing has breached your device. You don’t need to pay. There are some excellent, free anti-virus programs available.

Following these tips should maximise your cyber security and stop any threats you may have had. Remember, you can never be too careful.