Top tips for security‑ and privacy‑enhancing holiday gifts

Thanks to a decade or more of big-name data breaches, global privacy scandals and consumer rights legislation like the GDPR, we’re all more aware of cybersecurity and privacy issues today. And now that many of us are working more from home and our personal and work lives have begun to blur, the stakes have raised somewhat. No-one wants to end up in front of HR because their reused passwords were stolen and used to hack a corporate database, for example.

Our personal data is of great value not just to advertisers and data brokers, but even more worryingly, to cybercriminals. Unfortunately, there are many ways for nefarious individuals to get hold of it. They could use phishing attacks to target us directly. They may hide info-stealing malware in mobile apps, gaming torrents or other legitimate-looking software. Or they might use previously breached data to obtain our credentials and hijack our accounts. When it comes to advertisers and data brokers, much of the data slurping and selling is done silently in the background, often thanks to third-party cookies for better ad targeting or user experience.

Understandably, many of us want to mitigate the impact of these threats. So why not give the gift of better security and privacy and help your loves ones make some practical steps towards better protecting their personal information online?

But let’s first mention something that is a must these days and surely you have it covered already: comprehensive security software. You know by now that you and your family should use a security solution from a reputable provider on all your devices. Smartphones and tablets – which have been among the most popular holiday tech gifts for a while now – also need comprehensive protection from device-, network-, web- and app-based threats. If a device is connected to the internet, then there’s a possible risk malware could find its way onto it. And once on there,…