5 Ways To Protect The New Laptop You Got For Christmas
It’s that time of the year where the presents start pouring! For many people, this means investing some money in new tech, like a laptop.
But as you’re enjoying your awesome new device, we’d like to bring your attention to an important issue many people tend to skip: securing your new laptop. You may not hold state secrets on it, but you will have a lot of valuable information you don’t want to get into the wrong hands, like bank account passwords, or other personal information.
So, keep your laptop safe with these five tips:
- Add a Password When Logging in
This is the simplest form of protection – and the one a lot of people tend to skip because they think it doesn’t really do anything. But a difficult to guess password can prevent people from accessing your files and look around, which is important especially if you lose it or it gets stolen.
- Encrypt Your Hard Drive
Even the strongest passwords can’t prevent all hackers from accessing your laptop, so to really increase protection you may want to also encrypt your laptop’s hard drive. This will make it a lot harder for people to read the files on your drive directly, and they’ll need a lot of effort to get in.
- Add Some Security Software
Viruses, malware, spyware, ransomware – these are all potential threats to your laptop you can contract just by browsing online. Hackers are very creative and can get you to download these viruses without realizing it, even from links or websites that appear perfectly fine. Your laptop may come with some built-in security features, but you may want to add an extra layer of protection.
- Use a VPN
If you’re ever going to use public Wi-Fi, you should use a virtual private network (VPN), even if you’re only online for a few minutes. VPNs encrypt the traffic between you and the server, so other people cannot track what you are doing.
- Keep Everything Updated
Out of date software could potentially serve as a path for hackers to access your file, so it’s really important to keep everything updated to its latest version. Some will have auto-updates in place, others you’ll have to check yourself.
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Need more help in keeping your new laptop secure? West County Computers knows exactly how to help, so get in touch with us right now!
