It’s hard to imagine daily life without the option of doing so many things online. We can transfer funds, pay our bills or order a new feature film – from any place that our laptops, tablets and phones can get a signal. But every online portal opens the door to potential danger from cybercriminals eager to steal money or even one’s identity.

Here are the 10 basic habits you should adopt to help keep your cyber world secure.

1. Keep operating systems and application software up to date. This may be one of the most important tips on cybersecurity that people often ignore.
2. Install and regularly update anti-virus and firewall protection on all your devices.
3. Set your browser to use medium or high security settings and to automatically install updates.
4. Turn on the pop-up blocker.
5. If you use social media, don’t share your full e-mail contact list – it could lead to you and your contacts receiving spam and phishing e-mails.
6. Use social media privacy controls to limit who can see your online profile and posts.
7. Follow your wireless router owner’s manual to securely set up any wireless network.
8. Create secure passwords, at least eight characters long, that use a combination of upper and lowercase letters, special characters, numbers, and punctuation.
9. Create passwords that are easy for you to remember and difficult for cyber criminals to decipher, but never your Social Security number, phone number, bank account or other numbers that could help an identity thief.
10. Visit www.onguardonline.gov to stay up-to-date on cybersecurity information.