Resources for IT security

Heuristics

• Do not share your info: Never provide your passwords, usernames, bank account details, and personal information to people who approach you via phone or email. This could be a scam attempt to steal your money, or to access personal information that can be then used to extort you.
• Do not download promoted software: One of the worst things you can do is downloading a remote desktop application that provides full access to and control of your personal computer to someone else. These attempts may be presented as security software against a virus or a supposed hacking attack. In any case, if you have been contacted by someone who supposedly wants to warn you of a hacking attack and to help you deal with it, it is most likely a hacker themselves.
• Use secure connections (HTTPS):

Tools

• Surveillance Self-Defense: In our daily life, we use multiple devices and software, all of which may share some common potential risks, while some may have specific aspects that create further vulnerabilities. An excellent and rich resource is the Surveillance Self-Defense (SSD; https://ssd.eff.org/). A website, funded by the Ford Institution, which contains multiple guides on how to enhance one's digital security and privacy. It contains basic principles guides (basics), security-enhancing tool guides (tools), various guides for using popular devices like iPhones and Androids, as well as chatting services like Whatsapp and Signal in a secure way. It even includes a set of plausible security scenarios and how one should act in each case.

Operational Security (OpSec)

The above recommendations comprise a concise set of tools, websites, and heuristics that people can use to enhance their digital safety and privacy no matter their individual level of risk. However, it can be argued that some of these are useful for everyone while for others their value depends on the specific risk levels that each person faces. The approach of OpSec suggests that one should first evaluate their actual risk levels and then decide which countermeasures should be used. As an illustrative example from physical reality, the necessary level of home security varies widely based on where one lives and their specific personal details that may render them more or less vulnerable. A farmer who lives in a small farmer village with a stable population where everyone knows each other might not even need to worry about shutting their front door, while a rich celebrity who lives in a big city with high crime rates will have to invest heavily in expensive and complex alarm systems, security personnel and dogs, etc. This example illustrates that increased safety often comes at economic cost (e.g. most trustworthy VPNs are not free), it can make everyday life more complicated (2-factor authentication makes accessing a website or an app more time-consuming), and sometimes it can lead to different types of risks that would not have occurred otherwise (forgetting one's password for their IronKey hardrive or zip file used to lock a crypto wallet can lead to the permanent loss of access to the wallet, like the infamous story of Stefan Thomas, the man who lost 7,002 Bitcoins). Similarly, the OpSec principles argue that...