After the lockdowns of ’21 and 22s’ political tensions, many are betting on this year to bring some down-to-earth relaxation. If you’re on this blog, you likely plan on traveling to clear your mind.
Every responsible tourist prepares beforehand. We want to draw your attention to one critical issue that is best taken care of before departing – and it’s securing your data. According to IBM’s report, travelers have become a popular cybercrime target during the last decade. Hackers target them with various scams, set up infectious wireless points, and there’s always petty street theft.
This article briefly overviews the current traveling safety situation, and you’ll also find helpful data-safety tips.
Is It Safe to Travel?
There are a few things to notice when traveling in 2023. Firstly, the huge spike in tourists after the lockdowns drew many cyber criminals to the traveling industry. There’s a global rise in cybercrime against travelers and travel agencies.
Traveling agencies process a lot of personal user data, which was not unnoticed. For example, right before the new year, Indian Railway leaked 30 million customers’ data. Traveling in India is less safe for the time being because scammers will be more active in this region.
Lastly, you must take into account the global political predicament. Russia’s war in Ukraine and heated US-China relations resulted in the far-east countries tightening online surveillance. You should expect to be under a closer radar while traveling there.
How to Secure My Data While Traveling?
Luckily, securing your data doesn’t require you to be a tech guru. Firstly, we recommend reading our 4-life-saving cybersecurity tips for general traveling safety. After you have all that figured out, you can take care of your data storage units. Here are five tips and tricks that will help you out.
- Use physical storage. The comfort of Cloud storage is undeniable. However, sometimes it’s unreliable. Many travelers scan their passports and other essential traveling documentation in case they lose physical copies in unfortunate accidents. Do not keep these scans on the Cloud because it requires Internet access. Keep the most important documents in a USB flash to avoid issues when Internet access is unavailable.
- Secure Cloud storage. Recording your experiences is essential to most tourists. You can now upload your pictures and videos to an online Cloud to avoid filling your smartphone or laptop with data. Moreover, a reliable Cloud service allows organizing travel data between multiple devices. Pick the one that uses the latest data-encryption algorithms to secure their storage and accepts files in an encrypted form. This way, you will prevent any data leaks.
- Theft-prevention. Pay good attention to physical device safety. Do not leave smartphones and laptops unlocked and unattended. Moreover, you can now use sophisticated theft-prevention software. For example, Google provides a neat Find My Device tool that allows syncing your Android with a Google account. You can remotely track its physical location, play a sound, or erase all its contents.
- Avoid typing passwords. Hackers infect traveler devices with keyloggers to steal their passwords. We recommend using password managers to avoid typing them by hand. A password manager will autofill the password when necessary so the keylogger does not steal any valuable information.
- Make data backups. Data backup is the last line of defense to prevent losing your personal information. There’s a golden 3-2-1 backup rule: make three copies on two different media devices, with one of them offline. Offline backup can always be used in case you lose Internet access. And making three copies on two different media devices guarantees you will not lose data in case one of them fails.
2023 Travel Safety Predictions
Traveling always requires extra care, and this year is no different. However, you should pay closer attention to cybersecurity. Listing the top cybersecurity predictions of 2023, Forbes mentioned commercial airplanes as a potential target. The best course of action is to be updated on the latest cyber threats and pack up some protection software!
Overall, there are more than enough password managers and VPNs for everybody. We recommend getting used to cybersecurity software and using it regularly. Remember – hackers are always looking for the easiest targets. And being away from home is when you are the most vulnerable.
