5 Ways to Protect Yourself From a Cyberattack

Since the airing of the NBC News piece, people have reached out from near and far to ask me what else they should be doing to protect themselves from cyberattacks. My response? Same thing I said in the extended interview.

I’ve spent more than half of my career studying, tracking, and thwarting cyberattacks against individuals and large corporations alike. How do I take complex attacks — like those that take advantage of kernel-level exploits to turn your smartphone into an unparalleled surveillance device — and distill them into something that anyone can understand? In a nutshell, it’s this…

Cybersecurity can seem hard and complex. It is. Nation-state attackers, device compromise, zero-day exploits? These can be challenging concepts to get one’s head around. Your IT service providers, banks, government agencies, and employers spend millions on cyber-defense in the form of threat intelligence, advanced threat detection, offensive security, and incident response.

But as a consumer, there are actually many simple things you can do to protect yourself. It is not effortless, but it doesn’t require an individual to spend millions of dollars (or a degree in cybersecurity!) to protect yourself and your family from many forms of cyberattack.

There are more precautions to take, including using a Virtual Private Network (VPN), using anti-virus and endpoint security software, special considerations on mobile devices, logging, deletion of data, and so much more.

As a consumer, you can start now with these six actions. That’s because most of the attack vectors that sophisticated nation-state actors use for breaking into our systems require the end-user to make a mistake in one of these six areas. Yes, sophisticated cyber-defenses, IT resources, and industry-specific knowledge are required for governments and organizations to fight well-funded adversaries. But as an individual, these precautions can protect you, your family, and your data without extensive knowledge or a large budget.

[1] The situation is evolving rapidly, and the cyber risk is likely to change as a result. Continue to watch your trusted technical and media sources for up-to-the-minute stories on changing cyber threats and risks relevant to the invasion.

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