Tips for Protecting your Data

These days, absolutely everyone has precious data hooked up to their internet profiles and stored on their computer hard drives. Unfortunately, the nastier individuals in the world are all too aware of this fact. As such, it’s important to know how to help defend your hard drive from the threat of data theft and listed here are bunch of ways in which to do so.

Encryption

Encrypting your hard drive is a frequently touted method for defending your PC against the threat of thieves and viruses. If you’re unfamiliar with how this process works, there are an abundance of programs scattered across the web that can do the whole thing for you. 

The process of encryption involves the conversion of data into a form known as “ciphertext”, which is essentially a mangled, jumbled form of the original data that cannot be understood by any outside users. Anyone wishing to make sense of this data will require a password or key to decrypt it.  Without this, an attacker or thief has absolutely no use for this data as it resembles a random group of letters, numbers, and symbols that are impossible to decipher. 

Back Up Your Data

No doubt you’ve heard this tip a thousand times before, and there’s certainly a good reason for that. Backing up your data means that if your hard drive security is breached, you’ll still have access to all your treasured files that otherwise would have been fiercely swiped away from you. When you back up all of your data, it doesn’t hurt to do it in multiple ways. Set up a remote back up system.  There are a wide variety of these systems on the web. Back up all of your data onto a separate external hard drive you can hide out of sight once the process is complete. 

Password Protection

One simple way to help protect your hard disk data is to put a complex password on it. To do this, hit the F2 key when your system powers on (or DEL if you have a desktop), and use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move to the BIOS Security Settings page. Go to HDD PASSWORD and hit enter, reset your password (remember it whatever you do!), and press F10 to restart your system to allow the changes to take effect.

Safe Browsing

The internet is a fascinating place that practically runs the world today, but it can also be a dangerous environment if you don’t take the necessary precautions. Have you ever had to go through the process of data recovery? It can be a laborious process. One of the easiest ways to prevent hackers, viruses or thieves from entering your system and accessing your hard drive is by browsing safely and sensibly. This can be done in the following ways:

• Never let your browser store passwords for you. These can be pinched in an instant.
• Frequently clear your browser cache. Your cache helps your computer to boot quickly up pages you’ve visited previously by remembering them and storing pieces of their data elsewhere. By wiping your cache on a frequent basis, you’ll prevent images of delicate information that you’ve accessed on the web from being captured by thieves.
• Install protective browser software to run alongside you. These programs will defend you from malevolent pages and warn you before you enter a suspicious corner of the web. Also, be sure only to download one of these anti-virus/security software programs. Installing numerous defense systems has the potential to create chaos on your computer, as they may all try to shut repeatedly one another down – mistaking each other for hackers attempting to steal your data.
• Don’t risk downloading anything from unfamiliar sites, even if it is something as harmless as an mp3 file. Viruses and hackers can hide inside almost anything.
• Installing add-ons like Ad-Block Plus, Web of Trust, and Flashblock actively halt the kind of threats that have the ability to pop annoyingly up on your page whilst you’re browsing the web, and even more annoyingly steal all your precious data.