This year 2020 has been a tough year. With the outbreak of Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia around the world, our lives, work, and studies rely more and more on network services. As online activities become more frequent that it is severely challenging to information security, especially the risk increases under insufficient protection of personal equipment and home office environment. With the coming of long Christmas holiday and final exams, information security is often being overlooked easily when dealing with heavy work or study. In order to have a secure online working and learning environment, here are some safety tips for your reference:
- Keep devices and Apps up to date.This general tip is useful even if you are just casually surfing the Internet. Keep your devices up to date (including anti-virus tools, Apps and operating system) ensures you have the latest security fixes;
- When working at home, avoid other family members from accessing important information related to your work;
- Backup data! Make sure that you have performed data backup for each device. In case you lost your mobile device, data backup can be used not only for data restoration, but also for identifying lost data accurately, facilitating reporting and planning appropriate actions for data with security risks;
- Beware when sending important informationWhen using email or communication software to send information, you must ensure that the content and recipients are correct. Once you send some personal data to unauthorized persons by mistake, you are more likely to violate the laws of Macao.
- When receiving any information with URL link or attachment (especially an online meeting URL), DONOT open it unless you are expecting it and absolutely certain that it is legitimate;
- Secure Your Zoom MeetingPlease refer to “How to Secure Your Zoom Meeting” and “Using Zoom Effectively in Classroom“;
- Don’t overlook low-tech solutionsTape over the camera of your laptop or mobile device for privacy.
Reference
- A Distance Learning Quick Start Guide for Students, UM
- Caution Use in Video Conference and E-learning Platform, Office for Personal Data Protection (Chinese version)
- How much do you know about Information Security?
- Data Privacy in an Era of Compliance
- Don’t Let a Phishing Scam Reel You In
- Personal Data Protection Act (Chinese)| (Portuguese)
- Law on Combating Computer Crime (Chinese)| (Portuguese)