When I pop into my local, I always have the same thing to drink. I don’t go that often (honestly,) but the regular staff see me coming through the door and pour it without even asking.
I love cooking and I always use the same, large sauté pan, even if there are only a small number of ingredients and we have smaller ones in the drawer.
I work at someone else’s office premises once a week and always use the same facilities in the gents, even though there’s a choice and I’m not sharing. Sorry, probably too much information.
Where am I going with this?
In life, we all have habits – some good, some bad, some where it doesn’t really matter. By definition, they’re things we do without even thinking about them. Engage autopilot, press start. Good, bad or indifferent, they’re generally hard to break. As a result, we become predictable.
When it comes to online safety, cyber safety or whatever you like to call it, we all have habits … again good, bad or where it doesn’t matter.
Some bad habits are not changing the passwords on your online accounts regularly, and the PINs on your mobile devices. Not securely backing up your data to somewhere you can access it easily. Not updating your operating system and software programs. Leaving your phone on the treadmill when you refill your water bottle. Or assuming your kids are OK online because they’re sitting quietly in their bedroom.
Creature of habit
Any of these sound familiar? If they apply to you, you’re a creature of habit, and therefore predictable … including to cyber criminals.
So go on: if the wackiest thing you do today is change the passwords on your bank accounts, it doesn’t make you a boring person.
It makes you a safer person. Pick up some good habits at www.getsafeonline.org
