As you read the title of this article, you must be wondering, "How do you define cyber hygiene?" Does that mean I need to take my computer outside and wash it with a hose?

No, please don't actually wash your computer. Cyber hygiene is more about making our activities online safe in a way to make sure that we are not vulnerable to attack or exploitation by others. It's the art of making sure we use the internet in a way that we can still enjoy all of its offerings, but stop attackers in their tracks.

Passwords

If there is one paragraph to take away from this article, it is this one. Insecure passwords can be disastrous if not secure enough. Making them refer to pets, family members, and birthdays is bad. Today it is very easy for someone to use a tool to profile you and figure out what passwords you might use. We will talk about internet posting a little later in this article.

I recommend taking a look at [The top 10 password cracking techniques—and how to outmaneuver them](https://stytch.com/blog/top-10-password-cracking-techniques/) if you are curious about how hackers obtain your passwords. It's out of the scope of this article, so I will not be putting the methods into this article.

The biggest thing I want to remind you is that what you post on the internet will be there forever. Even privately. with the popularity of websites like [archive.org](http://archive.org) and other archiving sites. Even deleting posts will not stop people from being able to access them. to give an example, look at: [Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Texts, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine]([https://archive.org/](https://archive.org/)) You can find many archived websites, books, and other content that were "removed" from the internet. Even YouTube from 2005!

This shouldn't scare you from posting at all. This is just a warning that what you post online is there forever, so be careful about what you are posting. What you post today could be a big controversy that you were not even aware of.

Software

When it comes to software, you will be tempted by many advertisements to buy additional antivirus software. While yes, this does have its advantages when it comes to protecting your machine. Windows has already had this feature, and it has been proven well and good over time. This is why I **recommend sticking with Windows Security** as your antivirus of choice. Don't get pulled in by the ads of McAfee, Norton, or other software that are not required for most use cases.

You can find this antivirus just by looking in your settings under "security." As long as it is enabled, you will be protected from any malicious programs!

Suggestions:

1. Keep your computer and other software to the latest version; outdated software can introduce malicious programs.

2. Ensure windows security is enabled and working.

You could be using different protocols depending upon the device that you are sending text messages from, such as SMS or RCS. These are two different ways that we send the data a message has. SMS is the protocol that was created when texting was first invented. and we lacked the knowledge of security back then. Which in turn means that we left these unencrypted. Meaning that anyone, if they could see your internet traffic, could completely read your message, even your carrier!

If you have an android you can see the protocol you are using right now! Let's take a tour:

1. Open your texting app and go to any chat.

2. in your most recent message you can tap on it to reveal more information like time, and some other icons. Two question marks and a lock icon. If you see these two them great! You are using a communication system called Rich Communication Service, or RCS. This is end-to-end encrypted, meaning nobody else except for you and that individual can read that!

3. If you do not see those icons it is likely your message is being sent through MMS or SMS the same protocols that have been around since the invention of texting. These are NOT encrypted messages and can be seen by everyone from your internet service provider to even a hacker who might intercept the message.

How do I encrypt my messages? For those who are privacy conscious I highly recommend Signal. This is a very popular communication platform that provides end to end encryption backed by the "Signal Protocol", the biggest headache to law enforcement, eavesdroppers and anyone trying to access your messages.

There are lots of levels of cyber hygiene, going from none, all the way to overly privacy conscious. I would recommend taking a blend of all the suggestions here. The internet can be dangerous if you don't approach it the right way! 

Resources:

- Cybersecurity Infrastructure Agency (CISA) Cyber hygiene services - [Cyber Hygiene Services \| CISA](https://www.cisa.gov/cyber-hygiene-services)

- Archive.org - [YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.](https://web.archive.org/web/20050507021216/http://www.youtube.com/)