Prepping Your Home For Cryptocurrency Investing & Trading

If you are investing or trading in the financial markets from home, especially cryptocurrency, you need to take a second look at all the vulnerabilities that lurk right where you lay your head at night.

You see, your home is leaking data and maybe even is subject to outside attacks - and you have no clue. Insiders, let's take a look at why you should be prepping your home to reduce your cyber risk.

Your Home Is Leaking Data

Today's homes are filled with "Smart TVs", gaming systems, and computers that stay online all the time. These same devices are leaking data out to advertisers and other unknown sources about your habits. Those habits can even include what you are investing in and with who.

Manufacturers of smart TVs have already been involved in privacy issues before. All the way back in 2013, LG TVs that were connected to the Internet were also found to be collecting and transmitting data without user permission. And that was nearly 10 years ago. Imagine what can be collected now. Vizio is another, and they were fined for failing to disclose how and when it collected user information. They were even transmitting collected data unencrypted. So can we trust their data collection habits have improved? Meh.

How about those gaming systems your kids are playing, Xbox or Playstation maybe?

In recent years, there have been a number of gaming data breaches, including those from Zynga, Xbox, PlayStation, Stalker, and Nintendo. These breaches have resulted in a variety of crimes that have affected not just the gamers, but the parents also who had information on file.

House Rules: No Strangers Allowed

In addition to the aforementioned Smart TVs, we are now connecting our home thermostats (like Nest), refrigerators, and who else knows what because it is something in our life now that has an internet connection. Let's not forget...

The "Nest Hacks" were popular three years ago, and improvements to their security have been made since then, sure. But the problem is that crafty cyber sleuths and hackers continue to innovate and find ways to bypass default security measures.

The more internet-connected devices you introduce to your home, regardless of what they are, the more risk you are taking on. Especially when those devices can not run malware protection or have security features.

Turning Your Home Into A Digital Fortress

So Insiders, what can we do to lock down our home, at least the digital side of it, and prevent data leaks and incoming connections from the outside world? It's time to apply what businesses have been doing for years - and that is to incorporate a modern firewall at home.

And just note before you start thinking about it - yes, your home wireless router might have a built-in firewall or other security measures. But keep in mind as a savvy advanced investor, you want to have advanced security. We like Firewalla for this very purpose.

Using An Advanced Home Firewall For Cyber Risk Management

Firewalla can closely watch all the traffic entering your home network and exiting your home network as well as the traffic between your network segments if you have them. Pretty powerful.

With the Firewalla Deep Insight, you will know clearly and easily two cybersecurity items that address what we've written out above. And that is...

1. Which devices are connecting to your network.

2. What exactly they are transferring to and how much data they are sending out.

Firewalla will also notify you of any new devices that come in a range of your home network and you can optionally automatically limit the access you give new devices as much or as little as you like, so if a neighbor jumps on your guest Wi-Fi without permission, you can block all internet access to them if you chose to do so.

While your home router may have built-in security features that cover the basics, we like how deep protection goes with a product like this (and how easy and simple the setup is) on the Firewalla.

Best of all, it likely works with your current home network already with no big changes needed. And if you need or want it, extreme protective features are included...

You can never be too safe with new security breaches and vulnerabilities announced daily. As an Insider, we suggest you look into turning your home into a digital fortress so you can worry a bit less when you are trading or investing from home.