In an increasingly digital world, online security has become a crucial priority. As users of Apple devices, we know that our iPhones, iPads, and Macs do a great deal of the work to keep us safe online, but it's still essential to be aware of certain tips to contribute our part. Let's review a series of eight essential tips.
Updates, Backups, Secure Passwords, and Other Precautions
The first and most important thing is to keep our operating systems and applications updated, including iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. All updates usually include security fixes that are vital for protecting our devices from recent threats. Updating our iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch is as easy as opening the Settings app, going to General, and tapping on Software Update.
In this same vein, it's important to emphasize the importance of regularly backing up our devices. This ensures that, in any eventuality, we could recover all our information. On our iPhone or iPad, making a backup is as easy as going to the Settings app, tapping on our name, going into iCloud, and heading to iCloud Backup. There we can activate the automatic system or perform a backup on demand. On the Mac, within System Settings > Time Machine, we can use an external disk to restore all the information.
A crucial element for our online security is the use of strong and unique passwords. To facilitate this task, tools like iCloud Keychain can be of great help, allowing us to handle multiple complex and unique passwords, and generating them randomly. We can find the keychain in the Settings app, in the Passwords section of our iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
A secure password is important, but it could also be compromised. In this sense, implementing Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) on key accounts like the Apple ID or our main email, provides an additional layer of security, making unauthorized access to our accounts exponentially more difficult.
Across the web, it's vital to avoid clicking on suspicious links and to be extremely cautious with email attachments. Whether we're talking about links we receive by email, in an SMS, or through other messaging platforms, we must be sure that it's legitimate before clicking on it. When in doubt, it's best to refrain and, if we deem it appropriate, contact the entity related to the message by our own means.
Lastly, it's worth mentioning that when using public Wi-Fi networks, we should be cautious. If it's necessary to connect to them, using iCloud Private Relay to protect Safari browsing is a great idea. We should avoid, as much as possible, carrying out delicate transactions such as shopping, payments, or accessing banking institutions. It will always be better and safer to do so via mobile data network and, likewise, make sure that the website is secure.
Maintaining the security of our Apple devices in the digital environment is really easy, as they do most of the work. And yet, there are some concepts and good practices that are good to keep in mind. The eight we've just discussed are the most important to ensure that we enjoy technology in a safe and reliable way.
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