Become a conscious technology user this cyber security month

Today’s scenario, most of our lives are dependent on technology, from setting an alarm on the smartwatch, to driving with GPS on, technology has influenced our lives so much that most of us prefer reading an ebook rather than a paperback. Today’s conscious technology  refers to all of us who use technology to enhance our lives, for example, phones, online transactions, GPS, CCTV, wearable gadgets etc. 

Remember those days, when we went shopping with our parents, and by chance if dad forgot his wallet at home, we would run back to get it or, change our plan and postpone the shopping to another day, but today if we carry just a phone, we can easily shop at our heart’s content, of course if we have enough money in our accounts. This huge evolution from carrying a physical wallet to a “scan to pay” is possible due to a tremendous development in technology.

Well, there are two aspects of everything, whereas we now don’t have to change our plans for not carrying physical money or cards, however the usage of “scan to pay” or online shopping also needs a user to be pretty conscious while using them. For example, keying your passwords in a crowded place, might expose you to an external network, or maybe a camera is watching over you, so it's always advisable to hide your phone screen to key in your password or have a strong password. 

Lets say a conscious technology uses a new conscience, due to connectivity and AI, data no longer remains just an insight for information or knowledge. With increase of knowledge data is increasingly triggered to automated exposure and may have highly lasting and instant consequences. And this surely needs an increased and constant effort in defending, organizing concepts of right ethics.

Becoming cyber aware is one of the biggest transformations all of us need to acquire. With increasing ease of use technology, there is also an increasing number of bad guys watching over us, leave alone individuals, there are so many big organizations, like samsung, uber etc that has gone through several cyber attacks, so being aware of the threats and necessary precautions not to expose yourself to such attacks is one of the biggest way to become a conscious technology user.

As an user, using our smartphones, laptops etc with a conscious mindset is very critical as these devices are more prone to cyber attacks and hacks, so few tips that can help you become a conscious user,

You may enable biometrics for logging in, instead of a password can be a good choice, maybe a face detector or a fingerprint detector, biometrics, means when certain parts of your body becomes the key to allow access or deny access to your data.

Another important tip could be using automated data backup, so when things go wrong, recover the critical data and applications that power your business or yourself. Addressing a situation when files are lost is a second advantage of automated backup. In the event that your company makes backups on a regular basis, automated backups increase the likelihood that lost data has been backed up.

One of the most important steps to becoming a conscious tech user is using Multi Factor authentication for your financial apps. It's adding another step to your authentication. As more businesses go cashless, or as I would like to call it “Scan to pay”, more activities or transactions are being conducted online. Digital banking cyber crimes have an effect on both the customer and the banks. So using a multifactor authentication in addition to your password protection is the need of the hour.

Also enable device tracking, to your devices, in case of any mishap, say loss of device, etc. In order to obtain the source IP of dynamic ACLs and to keep the IPs' ties to security group tags intact, IP Device Tracking keeps a database of IP and MAC addresses.

The article has been written by Sandip Kumar Panda, Co-Founder of Instasafe technologies