The most important thing to protect your mobile devices, computers and data from hackers is secure PC software. Hackers (also called cybercriminals) attack your device or computer for many reasons, including the theft, modification and deletion of information that you consider important. Hackers have malicious motives, unlike other thieves who steal items for legitimate purposes. They are more concerned with having access to sensitive data that is not authorized. This can happen before you even know that something is not right.
Passwords, a security program and a firewall are the three most important steps to protect your computer software. If you follow these best practices your computer will be significantly less susceptible to being compromised by malware, hackers or ransomware (software that locks your data and demands payment to unlock it).
Change the name of your administrator account. Choose a strong password containing upper and lowercase letters as well as numbers and computer symbol. Avoid using a simple password like 1234, as hackers can use automated software to crack passwords that are easy to guess in a matter of minutes.
Update your operating system and other software. The majority of software updates contain security fixes that protect against hacking. Install all patches, and enable automatic updates if there are any, to limit your vulnerability to hackers.
If you own a laptop, or any other portable device that is not being used, ensure that the drive is secured. This is especially important for UF Students. You can enable encryption in Windows by going to Settings > Update and Security > Device encryption. This will secure your entire internal drive and a majority of external drives, including SD cards.
