Nasir is a journalist who uses social media platforms to meet new people. On Facebook he has about 2k friends; on Twitter he has 5k followers and a generous amount of Instagram followers. He puts up his email address and telephone numbers on all these platforms. Nasir receives an email from one of his Twitter followers about a new case he might be interested in with a link attached to view more details. Unknown to him, it was a scam in form of phishing, where they would have access to all his login information and bank details which he had stored on his email draft folder. This was how Nasir was ripped off of about 500,000 naira.

Nasir is not alone in this predicament. Many internet users have found themselves in his shoes simply because they took their digital security for granted. This example stresses the need to secure yourself online. Now, let’s go back to telling you about Digital Security.

Definition of Digital Security

Digital Security is the protection of one’s digital personality, as it represents the physical identity on the network you are operating on or the internet service in use. Digital Security includes the tools which one uses to secure his/her identity, asset and technology in the online and mobile world. Simply put, let’s think of digital personality as the human body. We have a duty to protect our body from harm which we could say is digital security. There are a number of methods (tools) that we use to protect our bodies.  We eat and live healthy and put ourselves out of harm’s way. The same applies to our digital personality.

Why do we need Digital Security?

Every day, there are quite a number of cyber-attacks and anybody could be a victim of a cyber-theft, hack or crime. Leading global brands have been hacked with false information put up on their websites and small businesses and innovative start-ups in all industries are frequently targeted because most of them do not have proper digital security systems in place.  It is very common to see a popular activist tweet, “The previous tweets from my account were not from me. I was hacked.” This state of affairs, in addition to the scenario painted through Nasir’s story, makes it essential for us to protect ourselves digitally. Nobody is ready to part with things they worked hard to achieve and acquire.

What digital security tools are available to us?

The most important Digital Security tool available to everyone is actually free and we all have access to that tool. You may be wondering what this tool is. Well, it being concerned and aware of the fact that the information we share through digital mediums could be used against us. Hence, we should be careful about what we share digitally and be extra cautious when receiving information which we suspect might be fraudulent.

There are quite a number of digital security tools available to users and these are identified below:

Tools for anonymous navigation online

If you intend to navigate the internet without giving off your location, you could install a software called Tor on your computer, which allows you to hide your location and it keeps whatever you are doing on the internet private. Not only is it very easy to install, Tor is also free. Another software which is also free is AnonymoX and it is available to Firefox and Google Chrome web browsers as add-ons.

Tools for telephone encryption

SilentPhone for phone calls is perfect if you want to protect your telephone conversations. It is free, and it works on the Android OS and iOS devices. There is also Signal which was created by a firm called the “Guardian Project”. It is available on almost all devices and operating systems. Signal encrypts your voice and video conversations and it is a better alternative to using Skype.

Tools to encrypt instant messaging

If you are someone who shares important information via instant messaging, you should use Cyph which encrypts messages for both Mac and Windows users. ChatSecure is another great tool which works perfectly on iOS and Android platforms