Freesound Forums

Hi,
I encourage you to take 15min to take care of your digital / computer hygiene for your safety.
Learn about password safety, common scams, and how to backup.
I don't expect you to read all this, just do a little somewhere every once in a while.

In short :
Do you know the following concepts?
3 2 1 backup rule?
Do you have a password manager?
CorrectHorseBatteryStaple?
2FA / MFA?

More detailed :
3 2 1 backups :
- Three copies
- Two different mediums / supports (SSD, HDD, Blu-ray, tape, Cloud storage, etc... Exclude USB/SD cards. Note Blu-ray M-disc and optical drives have the longest "shelf-life", consider that for family photos or very important documents.)
Despite those debates of which format is the most secure and least fragile, I'd argue greater redundancy and frequency of backups beats them all.
- One off-site (Don't put all your eggs in the same basket, have one at your family or friend's house or "on the cloud".
Remember "the cloud" is just someone else's computer's hard drive accessible over the internet. You can even make your own "cloud" / storage accessible over the internet (as long as the computer is on). Take care how sensitive things you store there are compared to how much you trust the host. Either that they won't peek in themselves or that they won't get hacked and leak to some more malicious people)

- Power-up your hard-drives every once in a while. They degrade over time, making sure everything still works and refreshing the magnetism / electronics will help especially for SSDs. Do it once a year to be on the safe side
- While you do, you can check the health of your drives. Your OS probably has a native hard-drive analysis tool. On windows I like https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/
I also use Winmerge to check mirroring of drives. Not ideal for backup mirroring but it works.

Password security : "CorrectHorseBatteryStaple" Much easier to remember than C0mbLêX, except computers brute-forcing a password don't care about how complicated your password is to remember just how long they are. A 4 word concept has many more characters to decode but only 4 things to remember. Then there's "dictionary attacks" trying every word or common passwords (Adminn123), so you'll want to throw in a wrench in those 4 words to avoid dictionary attacks. Such as an odd character in one of the words. Such as "Sta_ple" instead of “staple” as it wouldn't be in a dictionary.
So "CorrectHorseBatterySta_ple" 26characters to crack, none-existent word (Sta_ple) and only 5 concepts to remember as a human!
More info here : https://xkcd.com/936/

Also get a password manager. The more different passwords you have the better, but with a password manager you'll only have to remember the password for it!
If you have only one password, everywhere and everyone you gave it to knows it! So hope the one you used on that kid's Minecraft server isn't the same one as your E-mail

2FA / MFA Multi Factor Authentication. (Hey, double checking if this is you?)
You receive an sms from a unknown number, they claim to be your child, they even call you by your name! In reality it could be anyone with your number and name. So you ask something only they would know, or you call them on their usual phone number to double check it's indeed them. Same goes with your bank, email provider etc...
Someone checks in on them and says "It's me password123", they go "anyone could say 'it's me' password123" (especially after you entered password123 on that random minecraft server), so they contact you "is this you trying to get in right now? if it is, say tomato!".
It's an extra step, but it makes hacking you significantly harder! It is no longer enough to know your password; as the website is doublechecking with YOU that YOU'RE trying to come in.

A list of scams :
https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/consumer-protection/common-scams

Beware if they contacted YOU. Don't trust a pop-up giving you a contact, find contacts yourself! People don't give out money. Never ever give out passwords, credit card details etc...
Any friend/relative in trouble, get in contact with directly by voice! Or ask something only they would know. New contacts / Emails / Social media profile of someone you know? Make sure it isn't an impersonation and contact them by other means than their new contact/profile.

Avoid public WIFI anyone can see there, maybe even host their own public WIFI and pretend to be the business or station. At the very last use a VPN if you do. A WIFI hotspot from your phone 4/g connection will be safer.

I'm not asking you to be paranoid, just to know risks and act or skip knowingly.
Cheers!