Summer’s here – unfortunately not everywhere, but only if you live in the upper half of the world map. Taking a break from the office? Awesome. But don’t take a break from cybersecurity. Ever!

Everyone will soon break the usual routines in favor of spending time in the sunshine with family and friends. However, it’s never too much to take the time to wrap your head around some best practices for safe internet use and secure your network, your laptop, your cell phone, and more.

If you are among those who work on vacation – or if you own or manage an organization and expect your team to work during the summer fun – you gotta review, learn and teach some cybersecurity measures to help protect you and them from the bad guys.

XM Cyber brings you these travel-inspired “to-dos” for the season in order to boost your confidence and peace of mind not only when planning but also while enjoying your well-deserved summer escape.

You may always use these tips for both corporate and personal purposes. In your organization, just communicate with your staff and keep them conscious so that everyone can hit the road or the skies safely.

Our 10 Hot Cybersecurity Tips

1. Lock down your login – Your usernames and passwords are not enough to protect key accounts like email, online banking, and social media. Get ready for your summer trek by fortifying your online accounts and enabling the strongest authentication tools available, such as biometrics, security keys or multi-factor authentication.
2. Think before you app – Review an app’s privacy policy and understand what data (such as location and entry to your social networks) it can access on your device before you download. Delete apps you are no longer using.
3. Own your online presence – Not everyone has to know about your travel escapades and summer fun: set the privacy and security preferences on web services and devices to your comfort level for sharing. It is okay to limit how and with whom you share information – especially when you are away.
4. Actively manage location services – Location tools come in handy while planning your trip or navigating a new city, but they can also expose your whereabouts – even through photos. Turn off location services when they’re not in use.
5. Get savvy about Wi-Fi hotspots – Do not transmit personal info or make purchases on unsafe networks like those in local cafes and hotel lobbies. Bad actors can spoof what may look like legitimate hotspots to lure victims to send traffic such as emails, passwords, and documents through their equipment, and thereby steal data.
6. Turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth when idle – When Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are on, they connect and track your whereabouts. If you do not need them, switch them off.
7. Protect your $$$ – Be sure to shop or bank only on secure sites. A web address with “https://” means the site takes extra security measures. However, an “https://” address is not secure. Yes, fake websites can use HTTPS.
8. Never use public computers to log in to any accounts – Be extremely cautious on public computers in public places like airports, hotel lobbies and internet cafes. However, if you need to log in from such places, make sure you clear the cache and browsing history and delete all the temporary files from the computer. Also, never allow the browser to remember your ID and password. Or just go incognito.
9. Share with care – Think twice before posting pictures that would reveal you are not home or that you would not want certain people (like your parents or employer) to see. In addition, remember to post only about others as you would have them post about you. The golden rule applies online, too.
10. Before the break, back it up! – One of the most important steps in creating an effective plan is to figure out how often data, particularly your critical files, your “crown jewels”, need to be backed up. The good news is that, as opposed to a few short years ago, there are more user-friendly backup options. Some software solutions on the market automatically back up data at selected intervals, to make the process easier to manage.

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