por ALBERTO AZCARATE VARELA
THE BAJA POST/NEWSROOM
Working remotely, you must know that if you have excellent digital hygiene but the people who work with you do not, you are vulnerable. CETYS expert tells you how you can maintain a healthy environment. In recent weeks, much has been said about the accelerated digital transformation that the pandemic has motivated in various fields, mainly in the workplace and academia, and that has allowed us to continue developing our daily activities framed in what has been called the new normal.
As a result of this, little by little the care that is given to data management and the way in which each person manipulates the information that is exchanged through the various platforms and technological tools is taking importance, configuring what is known as digital hygiene.
Digital hygiene refers to the care that technology users dedicate to systems, giving them the maintenance they require, configuring them so that they are not very vulnerable, and updating them in a timely manner to maintain a clean digital environment, explained Dr. Verónica Rojas Mendizábal, Professor at the School of Engineering of CETYS University Campus Mexicali.
“Just as the use of technology to continue operations has increased, so has the number of attempted attacks and digital fraud. This is why the new normal is not only accompanied by new personal hygiene measures, but also requires better digital hygiene to avoid being the victim of some digital attacks that have grown alongside the pandemic. ”
To reinforce this concept and adapt it to daily life, she added, some of the habits that must be adopted in order not to be an easy prey for cybercrime is to constantly update and maintain devices, eliminating files and data that are no longer functional, with special emphasis on:
- Antivirus: As malicious hackers try new attacks, antivirus developers add new methods to detect them, so you should be careful to have the most up-to-date version.
- Passwords: creating passwords that are difficult to crack, containing rare words, uppercase, lowercase, and special characters, and modifying them every six months are steps that help keep you safe.
- Sources of consultation: Be selective or selective with the information you review. Sometimes links that contain viruses are spread, which can affect your devices. Make sure the links you share come from a trusted source before opening them.
- Terms and conditions: Before running mobile applications, read the terms and conditions, as many of the free applications ask you for authorization to share your data.
- Backups: Just as through personal hygiene you seek not to get sick, but in case of infection you seek to heal as quickly as possible, creating periodic backups is an important habit of digital hygiene that will help you recover soon in case of being a victim of an incident.
Computer Security Day, which is commemorated every November 30, is a reminder of the importance of taking preventive actions that keep people safe in the digital environment.
As in physical coexistence, said the expert, when you work remotely you should bear in mind that if you have excellent digital hygiene but the people who work with you do not, you are left vulnerable. Faced with this, companies must promote a culture of good digital hygiene habits among their employees, and provide them with the necessary tools to protect their information, for example, with applications that guarantee good data encryption.
Another field of action to spread the culture of digital hygiene is the educational field, mainly among young children, who are in full training, and for whom it is easier to acquire and maintain good habits through the example of adults.
“The best way to instill in them good habits are to show them how to be careful with the handling of information, teach them from an early age to beware of deceptions and attacks through digital means, especially in social networks where they must avoid sharing their private information and communicating with strangers. Promoting digital hygiene in children helps them to carry out the necessary routines in the future to keep their digital environment healthy, consolidating what we are starting today ”, she said.
