Everyone’s online much more than people would’ve been even a decade ago. While a lot of this can be for positive reasons, it doesn’t mean it’s all as wholesome as some people believe. Instead, there are often more than a few risks involved.

Hacks, fraud and other threats are always lurking around dark digital corners. You’ll need to stay safe online and protect yourself from these.

While you’ll already know this, you mightn’t know exactly what you should do. Fortunately, this doesn’t need to be as complicated as you’d first think. Five great tips are relatively simple, and they’ll keep you safe online.

Stay safe online with 5 great tips

1. Update Your Software

You would’ve seen quite a few notifications pop up on your laptop or computer if you’ve had it for a while. Many of these will be for updates for various software. These don’t pop up for no reason and you should pay attention to them.

When software hasn’t been updated in a while, it becomes increasingly less secure.

It becomes much easier to hack into and use, making sure your software is always updated. In most cases, this should only take a few minutes. On top of better security, it could even lead to the software functioning better. You’ve no reason not to do it.

2. Be Careful With Wi-fi

Your home wi-fi is usually secure and you normally don’t need to worry about it once it’s password protected. That often isn’t the only wi-fi you’ll use at various points, however. When you’re out in public, you could need to use free public wi-fi. As much as you might need this, it’s always worth being careful over.

It’s worth making sure you have firewalls and similar software installed on your device to protect it if you’re using public wi-fi. It’s also worth avoiding visiting websites that need sensitive information when you’re on this wi-fi. You never know if it’s actually safe when you do.

3. Look After Your Device

Your devices always need a little bit of maintenance and some of this affects whether you can stay safe online. Updating your software (as mentioned above) falls under this. You’ll need to go beyond this and use a few best practices so you can properly look after your device.

Even knowing how to clear Google search history helps you look after your electronic devices. It plays a role in making sure your device doesn’t get bogged down by old files, search histories, cookies and more. The more you look after your device the better you should end up being.

4. Back Up Personal Data

You’ll have quite a bit of personal information on each of your devices, including pictures and videos you love. If something happens with your device and it doesn’t work anymore you could lose access to all of these. That’s naturally something you wouldn’t want to happen.

Looking after your device, as mentioned above, helps with this. Make sure you have your personal data backed up, too. It’ll make sure you don’t lose any personal data you don’t want to lose. It’s more important that you realise.

5. Use Great Passwords

You’ll already know you’ll need to have passwords for various accounts. You’ll even know you should make sure these are all different from each other. Put a little time and effort into making sure these are as secure as possible.

Instead of looking at them as passwords, look at them as passphrases.

Come up with a phrase you can remember but would be impossible for someone else to predict. While this could take a little bit of time and effort, it’ll be more than worth it. Your accounts will be quite safe, so you shouldn’t have to worry about anyone hacking into them.

Trying to stay safe online doesn’t need to be complicated. It can be a lot simpler than you think. It’s just a matter of taking the right steps, and you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

With how many risks lurk around in the digital world, there’s no reason not to make sure you’re safe online. The benefits far outweigh the relatively minor effort it needs.