The Easiest Way To Protect Your Devices From Hacks? Keep Them Updated

This week’s WikiLeaks revelations, which showed that the CIA can compromise a huge range of devices, shouldn’t send you into paroxysms of fear over your smartphone. It should, though, be a solid reminder that one of the best ways to keep yourself safe from hackers is also one of the simplest: Update your gear.

What allows hackers access to your devices, after all, are breakdowns and vulnerabilities in the firmware (read: operating system) that runs them. Many companies push out updated versions of that firmware regularly, and those releases often include important security updates. A recent example? In January, Apple pushed out iOS 10.2.1, which which patched over a dozen vulnerabilities—some of them major.

That’s an extreme but not isolated example. And while there are plenty of other tin-foil hat strategies to securing your digital lives, the absolute simplest, surest way to achieve a baseline of protection is usually just to hit “update.”