Follow these simple tips and precautions to help keep your devices — and yourself — safe in the event of a Big One.
Perhaps you’ve turned on the news and caught wind of warnings about, umh, some countries allegedly trying to mess with other countries’ cyber networks and infrastructure — even private homes. And now you’re worried. What does this mean? Will my devices stop working? Is my internet safe? What do I do?
Now you may feel that fending off a massive cyberattack by a hostile world power is a tad above your pay grade. In reality, it’s the little things that can make all the difference.
There isn’t one single app or feature that can guarantee you won’t be even slightly inconvenienced by a state-sponsored, large-scale cyberattack — part of what makes these threats so scary for people is that it’s hard to predict exactly how they are going to play out. So your best bet is to plug as many holes, and cover as many angles, as possible. Preferably before anything happens.
You’ll be surprised how far a little prevention will take you — and nothing makes us happier than empowering you.
A good antivirus can (and should) do more than just block malware from getting into your computer. If you want your antivirus to hold up against a massive attack, there are a couple of essential features you should be on the lookout for.
While we’re on the subject of routers, these precautions can stop attackers from sucking you into taking part in an involuntary DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack — which is when attackers use your computer (together with often thousands of others) to launch simultaneous attacks on their intended target, such as a company, agency, power grid, etc. by bombarding it with more traffic than it can handle, and therefore shutting it down.
It really doesn’t cost a thing to make sure everyone you love has essential protection up and running — and in the event of a national-scale cyberattack, you really should do this right about yesterday.
We’ve made it easier than ever to share Avast Free Antivirus with anyone you’d like.
Once again, this is absolutely free — so no excuses, really.
A favorite tactic of modern cyber warfare is the ‘man in the middle’ attack — an attacker butts in between you and whatever you’re doing online (browsing, chatting, emailing, banking…), sees everything you type, send, and receive, and captures all your traffic — even modifies it. That’s a great and easy way for attackers to get a hold of compromising and embarrassing info, login details, passwords, credit card numbers, etc.
A VPN (or Virtual Private Network) can go a long way in protecting you from ‘man in the middle’ attacks. The name can sound off-puttingly imposing, but it’s really not — a VPN is simply an app that you install on your computer or smartphone, and when you switch it on, it covers all you do online under a thick blanket of encryption that nobody can read, even if they’re snooping. (It does a few other very useful things too.)
If you’re using public Wi-Fi, or if you’re unknowingly connected to a router that’s been hacked, and you want to help prevent these attacks from potentially wreaking havoc in our life, then you have to, have to, have to browse with a VPN on.
Surely we don’t need to tell you just how much you rely on your smartphone for — well, everything. Surely any domination-thirsty world power worth its salt will have figured that out too. Your mobile device is not safe from large-scale cyberattack, is what we’re getting at.
We know how to help secure your Android, iPhone and tablets — from anti-malware protection to mobile VPN and a free and safe password manager for all the accounts you use on the go. Have a look.
As we said earlier, the key to getting through a large-scale cyberattack unscathed is to cover as many angles as possible. Consider installing these extra layers of protection — in case of state-sponsored cyber warfare, it will be money very well spent.
You can find all of these features in Avast Internet Security. Give it a try.
As you can see, you’re far from powerless when it comes to protecting yourself from a massive cyberattack. Now you know how you can minimize your chances of getting caught in the middle of one, and help keep your loved ones more secure to boot.
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