Holidays are always busy times, you may travel somewhere and you take all of your devices with you. If you do, you should take extra-precautions!
1 Never EVER put any sensitive data on your laptop
A lot of users put sensitive data like passport or other documents on their laptop. This is a critical issue. If you do that and you lose your laptop you are vulnerable to identity theft, which can result in claims from third-parties. This can get really expensive.
The solution? Get a 64 GB data travel USB stick. Plug it in and create an encrypted container using TrueCrypt. Copy all sensitive documents including your passport into the encrypted container. Unmount the container. Only mount it when you are connected to a safe Wifi.
2 Use FIDO U2F SECURITY KEY
A lot of websites support the FIDO U2F protocol and the number of supported sites will most likely grow. This is much like a 2-factor authentication only more secure.
A special inexpensive security key is required:
Explanation how to set this up can be found here:
3 Set Up 2 Factor Authentication
Most websites these days, including all of your Google and Microsoft accounts support 2-factor authentication. It means you will have to enter a code before you can sign into your accounts which you will receive via SMS or automated call.
This is an industry standard by now and more popular than FIDO U2F at this point.
4 Use VPN Tunnels When Inside Hotel / Airport
Airports and hotels provide free Wifi and that is great, but don’t rely too much on it. Hackers are targeting you there.
Use a secure VPN to funnel all your traffic through another IP so hackers cannot sniff (detect) your traffic to the outside world.
I recommend using StrongVPN
5 Use The Cloud
The cloud is great, but it becomes even better when combined with encrypted containers. Using Windows or Linux you can quickly create a lot of small containers using TrueCrypt. There are also quite a few services that offer cloud encrpytion on the fly.
Snowden and others have warned about Dropbox, so storing sensitive data should only be done encrypted.
Make sure not to lose your passwords!