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Every October, the Canadian government, along with a coalition of security organizations and agencies, launch a promotional campaign to provide information on the importance of cybersecurity. Welland City Council joined the campaign on Sept. 22, and proclaimed October as Cybersecurity Awareness Month in the City of Welland.
Canadians are more at risk for cyber-attack now more than ever. Cybercriminals are using COVID-19 related supports and advertisements for personal protective equipment to lure Canadians into clicking links that could potentially steal data.
Protect yourself by understanding how you could be targeted, and take some simple steps to shore up your defences. Here are five steps to take and protect from cybercriminals:
- BE ON GUARD FOR SCAMS: Know how to spot phishing and spear-phishing messages.
- SECURE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA AND EMAIL ACCOUNTS: Review all privacy and security settings on your social media and email accounts and activate as many protections as possible.
- APPLY UPDATES TO YOUR MOBILE DEVICES, COMPUTERS, AND APPLICATIONS: Those updates are crucial to your security, as they can contain what we call security patches.
- STORE YOUR DATA SECURELY AND KNOW YOUR BACK-UP PROCEDURES: Use anti-virus and anti-malware software on computers.
- PRACTICE GOOD PASSWORD ETIQUETTE: Use unique passphrases or complicated passwords, especially for sites that hold sensitive or personal information such as online banking or CRA accounts.
For more information on how to stay cyber-secure, visit cyber.gc.ca.
