Photo by Ujesh Krishnan, Unsplash.

A basic cybersecurity habit that is frequently neglected is to turn it off if you’re not using it at night.

While we are sleeping, our computers, routers, and other connected devices might remain active for hours without anyone actively watching them.

From a cybersecurity perspective, that provides a window of opportunity.

Should a device be compromised, vulnerable, or exposed to an active threat, an attacker could have several hours without interruption during which they might carry out scanning, exploit weaknesses, move laterally, steal data, or maintain access before anyone realizes there is a problem.

Turning off a computer when it is not required reduces the time it is in use.

The same goes for your home internet connection; if no one needs it at night, turning off the router will reduce the time your network is accessible from the outside.

It doesn’t replace proper security measures; strong passwords, MFA, patching, firewalls, endpoint protection, backups, and secure configuration are still necessary.

Cybersecurity usually involves reducing the attack surface as much as is practical; if a system doesn’t need to be online, there’s no point in keeping it online.

One of the simplest security measures is, at the same time, the most physical one: turn it off.