WITH PRESIDENT DONALD Trump’s return to the White House and the US government’s digital surveillance machine more powerful than ever, digital privacy should be top of mind. But the digital security world can be confusing—and there’s the larger question of why. You may think, if I’m just a regular person, why is my digital privacy important?
Then there are the practical questions. What’s the best password manager? How can you keep your digital life under wraps at the border? And what kind of VPN should you be using? Is AI scraping my data?
WIRED senior writer and security expert Matt Burgess spoke with readers in a Reddit AMA this month about the basics of keeping your digital footprint locked down. Here’s what to know and why it’s important.
What is your advice for a quick win in terms of improving digital security for the everyday person? Or for someone who isn’t tech-savvy?
I think the one big thing people can do to improve their security is make sure that multifactor authentication is turned on for as many online accounts as possible. That way if anyone gets access to your password or login details, they’ll also need to have another way to authenticate the login attempt (such as the codes generated by an authentication app), and it's highly unlikely that hackers will have access to that.
