With summer travel season upon us, many are eagerly planning trips abroad. As the excitement builds, it’s essential to remember that increased travel brings with it heightened cyber risks.

Whether you’re heading to a tropical beach or a bustling city, practising cyber hygiene is crucial to keeping your digital life secure.

Cyber hygiene is like personal hygiene, it’s all about having a daily routine. That includes good practices to ensure that your digital environment stays clean and secure, especially when travelling.

When you travel, you typically carry a device, like a computer or smartphone. These devices, known as endpoints, connect to different networks —hotels, corporate networks, public Wi-Fi, or conferences. This connectivity makes them vulnerable. If you travel with your laptop and it gets infected with malicious software, such as viruses, there’s a risk you could spread the infection to your home or corporate network. If threat actors (also known as cyberthreat actors or malicious actors, are individuals or groups that intentionally cause harm to digital devices or systems) gain access to your device, they can infiltrate your network, potentially leading to severe consequences like ransomware attacks.

What can travellers do to protect themselves against cyberattacks?

• Patch Your Systems:

This is something which should be of high priority whether people are travelling or not. Next time you open the App Store or Google Play Store and update the apps on your smartphone, check out the release notes, and why the vendor is recommending you to update the app. In most cases, it’s about security features. Always keep your software updated; ignoring these fixes leaves your device vulnerable to known threats.

• Be Selective with Software:

Avoid installing random software unless you are certain of its legitimacy. Some countries require specific tracking software at airport immigration — ensure you install the correct ones to avoid any potentially malicious files that might be circulating on the Internet.

• Control Device Access:

Don’t let others use your laptop, even if it is just to quickly browse a website or check e-mail. This is dangerous, because if someone accesses their own inbox on your computer it could lead to you inadvertently opening a file and downloading malicious software. The same risk applies to connecting USB sticks from others to your computer. Always lock your computer with a complex password.

• Encrypt Your Data:

Data in laptops should always be encrypted in case of a loss, which can happen very easily when people travel. Laptops can be stolen or lost, and if you don’t encrypt the system, even with a password on the device, it is not that difficult for threat actors to get access to the data because they have physical access to the device itself.

• Avoid Public Wi-Fi:

Public networks are risky. Use a personal hotspot or mobile Wi-Fi router instead. If the network has bad security, then you are enabling your system to be scanned directly by other people on this network. No matter what, if you must join a public network, avoid any sensitive task. Don’t do online payments or log into your bank accounts. This lowers the possibility of you being involved in a cybersecurity incident.

• Stay Cyber Safe on Social Media

Social media plays a significant role in our lives, especially when we travel. It’s a great way to share experiences and stay connected, but it also comes with its own set of cybersecurity risks. While on vacation, it’s important to be mindful of how you use social media to protect your personal information and avoid potential threats.

• Beware of Scams

Another area to be cautious of with social media is the scams happening around instant messaging services. Social engineering (a cyberattack that uses psychological tactics to manipulate people into taking a desired action, like giving up confidential information) is still one of the most prevalent and most successful tactics for gaining access to user accounts and the more information you expose of yourself from your social media accounts, the easier you make it for attackers.

• QR Codes

QR codes became super popular for tracking during the last two years, and the potential risk of scanning QR codes is something that you need to keep in mind as well. Usually, when you scan a QR code, it opens a certain website on your device which may be compromised and can allow for malicious files to be downloaded to your device.

As you embark on your summer travels, it’s crucial to stay vigilant about cyber hygiene to protect your digital life. The above steps are essential for a secure travel experience. Follow these tips to stay safe and enjoy your travels knowing that your cyber defences are up and running.

Emmanuel Oscar is senior manager for systems engineering at Fortinet for the Caribbean.