Increase in cybercrime shows importance of secured devices

Securing your devices from others

Cybercrimes are on the rise and it's more important than ever to secure your devices and logins.

HOUSTON - Cybercrime is on the rise according to Chris Bronk an Associate Professor of Cyber Security at the University of Houston.

“It’s becoming more of a significant problem and frankly if people don’t do their due diligence they’re probably going to have problems,” said Chris Bronk.

With more people working from home conducting meetings over the web, it’s opening the door to more potential cases of fraud.

But Bronk tells FOX 26 there are several things you can do to prevent yourself from falling victim. He says setting a secure password for your devices is a good start.

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“People reuse the same passwords. If I'm a bad guy, I’m going to try to guess what other places I can hack into," Bronk said. Immediately I would go to the banking portals, to the five biggest banks."

A strong password should include:
- 8 Characters
- Numbers
- Special Characters
- A Combination of Random Letters

Bronk says the good news is that various manufacturers are doing a better job with helping users to lock up their devices. But the bad news is that people are still pretty lax at employing those features because they’re inconvenient.

Another way to stay protected is patching or updating your devices.

On many, there is an option to adjust settings that will automatically install updates.

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