{"id":28007,"date":"2024-03-07T09:20:22","date_gmt":"2024-03-07T14:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=28007"},"modified":"2024-03-07T09:20:22","modified_gmt":"2024-03-07T14:20:22","slug":"our-ten-commandments-of-safe-computing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/our-ten-commandments-of-safe-computing\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Ten Commandments of Safe Computing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 24pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\"><strong>Our Ten Commandments of Safe Computing<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">We could write a book (you know us) about computer safety (and we have). But we wanted to pare down our list and create a Ten Commandments of Safe Computing for you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\"> Our missions are to help you with your computer, help you safely navigate the web, and keep you safe from scammers and other online criminals. We want you all to enjoy your computers and your other internet-connected devices. The more you know, the less you have to fear.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-size: 18pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Here are our Ten Commandments of Safe Computing<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">1. <strong>Fortify Your Defenses<\/strong>: Install strong antivirus\/anti-malware software and keep it updated. <a href=\"https:\/\/thundercloud.net\/emsisoft\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">We use and recommend Emsisoft<\/a>. Emsisoft automatically updates and keeps your computer protected with a minimum amount of fuss.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">2.<strong> Guard Your Gateway:<\/strong> Secure your home router with a unique password. Routers come with default passwords. Make sure you change yours to something strong and unique.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">3. <strong>Think Before You Click:<\/strong> Always verify the legitimacy of websites and senders before clicking links or opening attachments. Hover over links to see the true destination URL. NEVER CLICK LINKS IN EMAILS UNLESS YOU ARE SURE YOU KNOW WHO SENT THEM.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">4. <strong>Windows Updates: Don&#8217;t Procrastinate:<\/strong> Update your operating system whenever updates become available to patch security vulnerabilities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">5. <strong>Craft Unbreakable Passwords<\/strong>: Create complex passwords with a mix of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. Make them unique for each account. And use a password manager. We recommend three. All have free versions. Bitwarden, LastPass, and RoboForm. There are others too. The important thing is to use one.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">6. <strong>Beware the Online Phish:<\/strong> Be cautious of suspicious emails, links, and attachments. Don&#8217;t fall for phishing scams or click on unknown sources. Again&#8230; NEVER CLICK LINKS IN EMAILS UNLESS YOU ARE SURE YOU KNOW WHO SENT THEM.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">7. <strong>Backup Regularly<\/strong>, Breathe Easy: Regularly back up your important data to an external drive or cloud storage for peace of mind. We recommend OneDrive. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/p\/microsoft-365-personal\/cfq7ttc0k5bf?activetab=pivot:overviewtab\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">For $6.99 a month,<\/a> you get one terabyte of cloud backup &amp; storage space plus you get the latest version of MS365 (MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, MS Outlook &amp; more). Nope. Microsoft does not pay us to recommend OneDrive. We have been using it for years now and it makes moving to a new computer as easy as pie.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">8. <strong>Be Wary of Public Wi-Fi:<\/strong> Avoid using public Wi-Fi for sensitive activities like online banking or entering passwords. If necessary, use a VPN for added security.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">9. <strong>Privacy Matters:<\/strong> Manage Settings: Consider disabling unused camera and microphone permissions to prevent unauthorized access.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">10. <strong>Scammers and scams are everywhere<\/strong>. If someone tries to pressure you or threaten you into acting immediately or paying with gift cards disconnect from the internet and wait a few minutes before reconnecting. If something seems too good to be true, there&#8217;s a 99.9% chance it is too good to be true.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Our Ten Commandments of Safe Computing We could write a book (you know us) about computer safety (and we have). But we wanted to pare down our list and create a Ten Commandments of Safe Computing for you. Our missions are to help you with your computer, help you safely navigate the web, and keep you safe\u2026 <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/our-ten-commandments-of-safe-computing\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3389,3770,4179,4450,1433,1678,1669,2942,1670,1680,4202,3948,4299,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28007"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28007"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28008,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28007\/revisions\/28008"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}