Tips on How to Clean Up Your Digital Life

Aura is an all-in-one digital security solution that helps protect you and your family’s identity, finances, devices, and personal info.

We all need a good sorting through and cleaning out once in while–that goes for both our real-world life and our digital one. While going through your house or clothes is probably a no brainer, why is it important to clean up your digital life as well? The simple answer is it can leave you vulnerable to cyberattacks that can have a serious impact on your life (or even your company’s).

Take Alan1 for example. His client (an anonymous company) was attacked by a ransomware virus that sent a program to lock all the company’s files. This hacker targeted the small company, got in and both locked and encrypted all the files as well as deleting all the backups. The only way they were able to get access to their OWN files again was by paying a very large ransom (hence the name ransomware) of $800,000.

Now, this is obviously just one example of how extreme a situation can get, but these types of attacks do happen more often than you think–especially when you don’t clean up your digital life.

That’s why we’ve compiled a list of ways you can tidy up your life in the digital sphere and protect yourself.

Delete the accounts you don’t use! Go through all your bookmarks, password managers, websites, and services associated with your email and delete any accounts you don’t use anymore. All you have to do is log in and deactivate it. By doing so, you're keeping any personal info (email, passwords, name, etc.) out of the hands of any data breaches associated with that account.

You can also do this for any apps you have on your devices. Go through them and see which ones you actually use or which ones you can delete, along with any personal information they’ve collected within it.

Use a password manager. A password manager can help you not only organize all your passwords in one place, but also create unique, strong, and hard-to-guess passwords. We love and trust the one Aura has in their all-in-one security solution. With a password manager you won’t have to worry about remembering them all, and it will make cybercriminals' attempts to hack into your accounts even more difficult!

Clean out old and current devices. Whether it’s an old computer, tablet, or phone that you simply want to throw out, or the device you still currently use - going through what’s actually on it and deleting as much data as you can (this includes photos) makes a huge difference.

Not only can it make your life easier by giving you more space on your device, but it makes it work faster as well. As you do this, you should also install any software and security updates available, as these are created on purpose to patch any vulnerabilities that have been detected. You can always back up any information or data on an external hard drive or in the cloud if you don’t want to delete it forever.

Digitally shred your old files and encrypt important ones! How? There are comprehensive security softwares (like Aura) that provide this service. It helps protect you from malware, viruses, and other types of cyberattacks on your identity and privacy. They offer things like file encryption (no one can access your files without an encryption key), digital file shredder (permanently deletes old files from your computer), identity theft protection (that automatically checks the dark web for any leaks of your personal information), and more.

Cleaning your digital life is incredibly useful, but it can be fun too! All you need to do is take the time to go through all your files, consider using security software like Aura, and you can be one step closer to protecting your personal information from the hands of cybercriminals.

1 https://steadynetworks.com/a-real-life-ransomware-story/

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