13.08.2024 - The holiday season is slowly coming to an end and we have all made wonderful memories to look back on. To ensure that our memories remain safe, it is important that we think about cybersecurity. Read on to learn what to look out for.
Preserve your memories – digitally
After the holiday is over, many wonderful memories remain. Thanks to smartphones, action cams, drones and cameras, we can capture these moments not only in our minds, but also digitally. To ensure that these memories last for a long time, it is important to back up the files. It is easy to take digital keepsakes for granted and forget that digital files do not last forever. Storage media can break, devices can get lost or stolen, and without a backup, all those precious moments are lost forever. That's why we should take a moment to preserve our memories after every trip or special event.
Recommendations
- Transfer photos and videos from your camera and smartphone to a storage medium on your computer or on a server.
- Also, back up all your pictures and videos, ideally to a USB stick or SSD hard drive that you keep separate from your computer.
- You can also store your data in the cloud. However, you should make sure that access to the cloud is well protected. For example, by enabling two-factor authentication.
Think before you post
In the age of social media, many of us don't want to keep our memories to ourselves, we want to share them with our friends – maybe even the world. With the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), however, we are increasingly facing new risks. Today, it is relatively easy to manipulate images and create pictures or videos that show completely fake situations. The more images of a person are out there, the easier it is for AI to create deepfakes. Deepfakes are images, videos or audio files that are completely computer generated but look and sound like real recordings. They are often very difficult to detect. In addition, AI is constantly evolving. What seems impossible today may be possible tomorrow.
Scammers take advantage of this and use different approaches: for example, they can use AI to create nude images of their victims and extort money from them. This is known as sextortion. It is particularly uncomfortable when the deepfakes show the victim in familiar surroundings. You should think about the potential impact of everything you publish, particularly if other people, such as your children, are in the picture or video. When posting pictures or videos of people who cannot give their consent, you should be especially careful.
Recommendations
- Every time you post something on a social network, think about what information you are sharing.
- Do not publish pictures of people without first asking permission.
- Set your social media pages to 'Friends only'.
Check your credit card statements
Finally, it's worth checking a few things at the end of the holiday. The most important thing is to check your credit card statement to confirm that all transactions are correct. Contact your bank or credit card provider immediately if you notice anything unusual. You should also check your devices for any apps or programs you installed while travelling that you no longer need. Unnecessary applications can create security vulnerabilities, so keep only the ones you really need. If you've subscribed to any services while travelling (such as navigation apps), don't forget to cancel them when you no longer need them.
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Last modification 13.08.2024
