The FBI, like other police and security forces in other countries, has taken on the role of security adviser on new technologies or the Internet. From time to time, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation surprises us with quite interesting security advice, especially for less experienced users who need a guide on how to navigate the Internet or social networks. Having good cybersecurity habits is key and today we are going with the battery of measures proposed by the FBI in relation to browsers.
The first recommendation of this body bequeathed when warning about the safety of Smart TVs . Among the tips, change the default passwords, deactivate or cover the camera or update whenever possible. Later they returned to the fray with advice on public WiFi . In fact, the FBI recommends not using these networks at all. His last security tip was about passwords that we thought were strong and really are not. In summary, they recommend combined passwords of 15 or more characters.
Security tips when using the browser
This week, on the FBI’s Tech Tuesday, they talk to us about “building a digital defense with browsers.” As we know, Internet browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge or Opera are the way we have to access the network of networks. By its nature, with open doors “to the world”, which cybercriminals take advantage of to try to sneak into our house.
The default browser settings, always according to the FBI, can make us vulnerable to these attacks . Therefore, they recommend that we spend some time configuring and adjusting these settings to raise our level of security. The points they recommend us to review are:
- Disable auto-completion, saving of passwords and browsing history
- Do not accept third-party cookies
- Clear all browser history by closing the browser.
- Block ad tracking.
- Enable ‘do not track’ requests to send to websites.
- Disable the collection of browser data.
- When certificates are requested, make sure that the browser asks for your permission.
- Disable the cache (or storage) of web pages or other content, or set the cache size to zero.
- Please enable browser functions to block malicious, deceptive or dangerous content.
In addition, it reminds us that we can choose extensions or addons that can do this job much better than the native functions of the browser itself. However, we must make sure to install reliable extensions with good comments and a clean reputation.
Finally, the most common advice of all that is to always have the browser updated to the latest version. There is no use taking all security measures if we are using an old version riddled with vulnerabilities.