{"id":8817,"date":"2024-01-02T18:01:19","date_gmt":"2024-01-02T22:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tcn.tidbits.com\/?p=10247"},"modified":"2024-01-06T09:59:23","modified_gmt":"2024-01-06T13:59:23","slug":"improve-your-digital-security-in-2024-with-these-new-years-resolutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/improve-your-digital-security-in-2024-with-these-new-years-resolutions\/","title":{"rendered":"Improve Your Digital Security in 2024 with These New Year\u2019s Resolutions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Happy New Year, and welcome to 2024! For many of us, starting a new year means reflecting on fresh habits we\u2019d like to adopt. Although we support any resolutions you may have made to get enough sleep, eat better, exercise more, and reduce social media usage, allow us suggest a few more that will improve your digital security and reduce the chances that bad things will happen to you online.<\/p>\n

Back Up All Your Devices<\/h3>\n

The most important thing you can do to stave off the slings and arrows of digital doom is to make regular backups. Bad things happen to good people, such as a Mac\u2019s SSD failing, an iPhone accidentally falling off a boat, an Apple Watch breaking in a fall, or loss due to theft, fire, or flood. With a good backup strategy, you can recover from nearly any problem.<\/p>\n

For the Mac, it\u2019s easiest to back up with Time Machine to an external drive, but remember that an offsite or Internet backup is also essential. With iPhones and iPads, it\u2019s easiest to back up to iCloud, which happens every night automatically if you turn it on in Settings > Your Name<\/i> > iCloud > iCloud Backup, but you can also back up to your Mac if you don\u2019t have sufficient iCloud storage space. Apple Watches automatically back up to their paired iPhones, so if you protect your iPhone, you can always restore your Apple Watch.<\/p>\n

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Keep Your Devices Updated<\/h3>\n

Another key thing you can do to protect your security is to install new operating system updates and security updates soon after Apple releases them. Although the details seldom make the news because they\u2019re both highly specific and highly technical, you can get a sense of how important security updates are by the fact that a typical update addresses 10\u201330 vulnerabilities that Apple or outside researchers have identified. Some are even zero-day vulnerabilities<\/i> that are already being exploited in the wild.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s usually a good idea to wait a week or so after an update appears before installing, on the off-chance that it has undesirable side effects. Although such problems are uncommon, when they do happen, Apple pulls the update quickly, fixes it, and releases it again, usually within a few days.<\/p>\n

Use a Password Manager<\/h3>\n

We\u2019ll keep banging the password manager drum until passkeys<\/a>, the replacement for passwords, have become ubiquitous, which will take years. Until then, if you\u2019re still typing passwords in by hand or copying and pasting from a list you keep in a file, please start using a password manager like 1Password<\/a> or BitWarden<\/a>. Even Apple\u2019s built-in password manager<\/a> and iCloud Keychain<\/a> are fine, if not as fully featured as the others. A password manager offers five huge benefits:<\/p>\n