Here we will give you a few tips for keeping your devices and data secure throughout your holiday or business trip, so you can enjoy your time away without any worry. We have compiled a list of the preparations you should make before your trip as regards your technology and what you should bear in mind while you are away.

Before your trip

The process of making sure you are using your devices securely starts even before you set off. This is the time when you can put safeguards in place to relieve stress during your trip and prevent hassle at a later date.

Important documents

• If you scan important documents like passports or ID cards, airline tickets, booking records and vaccination certificates before saving them to a USB stick or the cloud, it is a good idea to encrypt these files or protect them with a password.
• If you want to take your actual documents with you, check whether copies will be acceptable, so you can leave your originals safely at home.

Defending yourself against theft and loss

Wherever large numbers of tourists gather together, thieves are often not far behind. Laptops and smartphones are attractive spoils. But if they are stolen or lost, the damage can extend further than the loss of the devices themselves. There is also a risk of personal or business data being misused by unauthorised parties.

• Only take with you those IT devices that are really essential. If you are on holiday, you could take the opportunity to step away from your digital life for a couple of days.

• Protect all your devices, apps and data with a password. This will stop your device or the data on it being misused if the device is lost or stolen. Set up two-factor authentication where possible.

• Do not carry any passwords with you, for example, jotted down on notepaper or similar. It is much better to invest a few minutes in setting up a password manager. Then you can manage your passwords in encrypted format there and you only have to remember one strong password for logging in to the manager.

Home network/Smart home

• Switch your home WLAN off while you are away — it's the best way to protect against intruders. You can disable the WLAN function in your router's settings menu. Alternatively, switch the router off completely.

• People with smart homes should also make sure they activate holiday mode before they set off. Lights will then be switched on and off automatically several times a day or blinds will be opened during daylight hours to make the house or apartment seem occupied, which will deter any would-be burglars.

• Check the privacy settings of your social networks so not everyone will know you are away from home.
  

Mobile devices

• Update the security and encryption features on the devices you want to take with you (e.g. smartphone, tablet or laptop) to the latest and most secure versions.
• Using prepaid cards instead of contract mobile phones when you are abroad is a good way of automatically capping your costs. It limits the amount of money you could lose to any roaming charges you had not realised were in place or the losses you could incur if your phone is stolen.

During your trip

If you have taken the time to get your technology ready, you can mostly sit back and relax during your trip. But there are still some situations where being alert can really pay off.

Internet usage

If you want to use your laptop, tablet or smartphone to go online when you are abroad, you will be exposed to the same threats from viruses, worms and hackers as you are at home.

• Make sure the operating system, virus-protection software and firewall on your devices are up to date.
• You should protect your mobile devices, as well as all your apps and data, with a password or fingerprint, for example. This will stop your device or the data on it being misused if the device is lost or stolen.
• Anti-virus programs and operating systems can go out of date again very shortly after they have been updated. If you are using your device to go online, you should update all security-relevant systems again while you are away. However, these updates use a lot of data and can be expensive, depending on how you are connecting to the Internet (dongle, hotel WLAN or similar). So if you do not have the option to keep your system up to date at a reasonable cost, it is better to just not surf the Internet on your own device.

Internet cafés and computers that are accessible to the public

With computers that are accessible to the public, you do not know whether their virus-protection software and firewall are up to date. What's more, any external storage media you use, such as USB sticks, may become infected with viruses and worms.

• Avoid entering confidential data on computers that are accessible to the public and do not do any online banking or shopping in Internet cafés or on other public computers (see 'Online shopping and online banking' below for further information).
• Only connect external storage media like USB sticks or SD cards if you are sure the information stored on them is not especially important. Never connect the storage medium to your personal devices again afterwards.
• Do not process any sensitive information.
• Carefully delete any information you have (temporarily) saved on computers that are accessible to the public. This also applies to the browser history.

Mobile networks and hotspots

Public Internet allows you to get online with your own device at an airport or train station, in WLAN cafés or at other hotspots. You should make sure the connection is protected.

• If the hotspot has weak encryption (a short password, for example) or no security settings at all, it is better to just not use it.
• Configure your operating system, web browser and e-mail programs restrictively: use an operating system user account with limited access rights and never surf using administrator rights. Disable file and directory shares for networks. The shares that exist on a Windows computer are summarised in the Control Panel under Administrative Tools -> Computer Management.
• Adjust your firewall settings to give a higher security level.

Online shopping and online banking

You should always exercise particular caution when shopping online and performing bank transactions. But these kinds of activity are even more risky when you are doing them away from your usual home network.

• You should avoid online shopping or banking wherever possible when you are travelling.
• Always enter web addresses manually. Or use a bookmark that you are sure has the correct address. Online criminals like to operate websites that look similar to genuine sites, but whose addresses will contain a common spelling mistake or one dash too many or too few. Never follow links to bank or other business websites that are provided in e-mails.
• Make sure your data is being transferred in encrypted format (you can recognise this by the 'https://' at the start of the website address).
• Agree with your bank on a limit for daily money movements in online banking.

Communication via smartphones

• Only enable any wireless interface such as Bluetooth, NFC (Near Field Communication) or WLAN for as long as you actually need to use it.
• In your smartphone settings, disable the data roaming option if you do not have a suitable tariff. Smartphones and the apps installed on them can send and receive data in the background, so you can transfer a large amount of data without realising.
• As tempting as it may be to share that photo of the sunset with your friends at home, wait until you are back to post your holiday snaps on social networks like Facebook or Instagram. Anyone disclosing on social media that they are away on a trip, meaning their house or apartment is empty, increases their risk of falling victim to a burglary.

After your trip

If you have not checked your e-mails during your break, your virtual mailbox may be overflowing. In amongst all those e-mails you may find fake reminders urging you to act fast to stop your accounts being locked or an agency placing you under investigation. Stay calm, they are probably just attempts at fraud.

Go through all your e-mails carefully. Delete everything that seems suspicious and don't allow phishing e-mails to mislead you with their false sense of urgency. In particular, make sure you follow our tips on how to check your e-mails in 'Three seconds for more e-mail security'.