What online security measures do you use?

midian182

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Yahoo’s admission this week that a 2014 hack led to over 500 million accounts being compromised was just the latest in a long line of hacks perpetrated against companies.

LinkedIn, Dropbox, MySpace, Tumblr, VK.com, are just some of the firms that have had user data leaked online at some point. And it’s not just the number of sites being breached that is increasing, other online risks such as phishing emails, malware, ransomware, fraud, tracking, and id theft are on the rise.

Today, more people than ever before use the internet, and many aren’t tech-savvy enough to follow reasonable security practices. But even the most advanced users can slip up; Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had his Twitter and Pinterest accounts compromised after hackers reportedly re-used his leaked LinkedIn credentials (password: dadada).

For this Weekend Open Forum we want to know what online security measures do you take? Do you pay for an antivirus program such as Norton or do you go with a free option? Do you always use virtual private networks to protect yourself? Are password managers the best way to avoid using the same login credentials on multiple sites? And, like Zuckerberg, would you go as far as sticking some tape over your webcam? Whatever methods you use, do let us know.

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This is my setup:

adblock plus (techspot whitelisted o:) + noscript + paid antivirus [bitdefender] + comodo firewall [custom] + acronis + common sense

Last week a pop up crashed my browser after saying my pc has a problem. After resetting my pc, I loaded my recent acronis image. Thats it.
 
Common sense data back ups ,Windows 10 on 4 PC's here .

Chrome web browser default , Windows Defender ( * for windows 10 only ) , MS Malicious Software Removal Tool ,mbam free, ,mbam anti ransomware free beta ,mbam anti exploit ,Adblock and Ad block plus ...........no $$ AV bloatware suites or any spyware c**p and I never use the same password twice or at different websites and change important ones with any important ID or $$$ links regularly and I usually give out fake name/ ID /DOB info to casual use ( web surfing ) websites that have no need for accurate ID data or banking transactions outside of a single use or occasional paypal transaction and sometimes I use disposable email addresses .

Significant savings /money /investment accounts ,assets etc are not linked to debit/checking and anything significant is on * another dual boot HDD stable windows 10 AU OS , another email acct and * not this daily driver SSD and ( this ) windows 10 OS and I don't casual web surf on that other W10 OS .
 
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Every website has a different password, 15 characters with special signs, generated live by a password maker.
 
Every website has a different password, 15 characters with special signs, generated live by a password maker.
Agreed. If I can't remember a single one of my hundred-or-so passwords then chances are no one else will either. Only took me 15 minutes to login to this website. :)
 
You asked, so I'll respond:
  • tools which are PRO-active instead of REactive; meaning capable of stopping the access before the infection occurs. Email scanning and Webpage link scanning are fundamental here. Scanning files on disc is a REactive approach and the horse is already out of the barn. Gave up on Norton clear back to Win/98se !
  • log in for day-to-day work using a Limited Account and not an account with Admin privileges. This will foul a large population of Trojans and Virus'. The concept was recommend back in Win/XP, and now enforced in Win/8.1 and above.
  • the obvious mantra of Windows Updates.
  • I've mentioned using etc\hosts file elsewhere as a domain filtering tool to deny many 'phone-home' attacks.
If I need (or fear I might need) to scan files, I use both Avast! Free and MalwareBytes (but do not autostart) and run the scans manually - - it's rare for me to find anything, even when scanning twice a year.
 
I don't use anything besides Windows' own protection. It's kinda hard to get viruses these days.
 
I used to rely on free avast but since win8 I've only used Windows Defender and malwarebytes for ocassional checks. Also adblock, common sense and generally avoiding questionable site/apps which seem to be false positives when it actually isn't.

Few years back I knowingly whitelisted a malware which I thought was a false-positive. Lesson learnt. Better-safe-than-sorry logic for online transactions, watch out for https and site phishing.
 
Complicated, non-sensical 12 character long passwords generated by Lastpass and 2 step verification wherever possible. Although Techspot has incorporated it to work with Google authenticator and I have it enabled, I have never used it because when signing in I'm never asked to authorize. I don't know what gives.
All that and a bit of God given common sense otherwise everything else is stock Windows or Google.
 
I use an adblock extension on Firefox & Chrome. All my passwords are generated by LastPass. I use Norton Security Suite(provided by my ISP) running on my computers.
 
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