Cybersecurity for Protecting Your Digital Life: A Review of Personal Threats, Defensive Technologies and User Awareness

Digital communication, online banking, shopping, education and social networking are now part of everyday life, and with this dependence comes exposure to phishing, malware, ransomware, identity theft, password attacks and unauthorized access to personal information. This paper reviews cybersecurity from the perspective of the individual user. It examines the most common threats to personal digital life and the technical and behavioural defences that counter them, including strong password management, multi-factor and passwordless authentication, encryption, firewalls, antivirus and endpoint protection, secure browsing, software updates, backups and phishing detection. Research on how attackers obtain credentials, why users fall for phishing and how experts differ from non-experts in their security habits is surveyed to explain why technology alone is insufficient. A layered personal security architecture is proposed that combines identity protection, device security, network security, data protection and user awareness under continuous monitoring. A research gap analysis, objectives, a comparison of authentication methods and a discussion of challenges are presented, with reference to the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and Indian incident-reporting guidance. The review concludes that a small set of well-chosen habits, supported by usable security tools, can greatly reduce the risk of data breaches, financial fraud and identity theft.