Cybersecurity Best Practices

Personal Checklist

✅ Use a password manager and unique passwords per account
✅ Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) everywhere possible
✅ Keep operating systems and software patched/updated
✅ Verify sender addresses before clicking links or attachments
✅ Use full-disk encryption on laptops and mobile devices
✅ Back up important data regularly (3-2-1 rule)

Organizational Practices

Practice	Purpose
Least Privilege	Limit user/system access to only what's required.
Network Segmentation	Contain breaches by isolating critical systems.
Regular Patching	Close known vulnerabilities before they're exploited.
Security Awareness Training	Reduce human error, the top breach cause.
Incident Response Plan	Ensure fast, coordinated response to breaches.
Regular Backups & DR Testing	Recover quickly from ransomware/data loss.

Secure Server Hardening (nginx example)

# Disable server tokens to avoid version disclosure
server_tokens off;

# Enforce HTTPS with strong TLS settings
ssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
ssl_ciphers HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5;

# Add security headers
add_header X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN";
add_header X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff";
add_header Referrer-Policy "no-referrer-when-downgrade";