BENGALURU: Internet is an amazing resource which is stapled in many people’s day-to-day lives. It is very much informative but at the same time encircled with many dangers. Listed below are the strategies you can follow to stay safe on the internet as stated by Tech Radar India.
Use your discretion on social media
Online scams crops up almost everywhere in webpage such as an e-mail, tweet, Facebook post, or many other places. Never click on links that do not look like a real address or pop-ups that claim you have won millions of dollars—all these are scams in which one can easily get trapped. Also don’t fall prey to e-mails which ask you to help someone transfer a large amount of money out of their country delineating their long sad story. Hackers can access data through various innovative ways like sharing links of content that they feel the targeted person is likely to click.
Be careful of what you are sharing
Limit the content that you share on social media. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other social media sites are part of people's everyday lives. Be careful as many secure sites, require security questions like: "What is your favorite sport?", "What is your paternal grandmother/father's name?", "What town did you grow up in?", or "What is your mother's birthday?" Avoid such kind of common questions for which answers can be easily found on Facebook pages. Learn to choose harder questions that will protect your account. Review the permissions to see what data you’re giving up when installing a network-connected device, such as a home router or downloading a new app.
Shop safely
Unless it has the “https” and a padlock icon to the left or right of the URL don’t shop on a site. Credit card company is more likely to reimburse you for fraudulent charges so, protect yourself and use a credit card instead of a debit card while shopping online.
Split your emails
Use multiple addresses rather than linking Facebook, Twitter, newsgroups, forums, shopping and banking sites to one e-mail address. As a minimum, activate two-factor login for important accounts and
use one for social activities and the other for financial business. Besides if one email id is hacked, it won’t be a nightmare as losing control of the other addresses.
Familiarize yourself with the proper office procedure
If you feel that any e-mail or a particular action is not following normal procedures, don’t be afraid to raise questions. And also most importantly do not reply or worry about the e-mails that seem to be suspicious. Contact the sender by finding their address from the corporate address book and verify the message.
Install security software and keep it updated
Surfing the internet without an anti-virus program is unsafe and invites spam, hackers, and viruses onto your computer. Hence regular update of the anti-spyware program is vital.
Always back up data
It is advised to protect files and backup data regularly using a secure backup solution so that criminals can’t get hold them.
Bid smartly
Make sure you never transfer any money directly to a bank account or hand over any personal details in an auction site that you are not familiar of.
Stop redundant services
Great risk seems to peep in when you intend to use more software and services running in your device. Hence it is always safe to delete or deactivate applications and services that you don’t use.
While using file sharing
When you share your files do it with utmost precaution keeping security factors in mind. Isolate the file that you have downloaded and execute it from a virtual environment to ensure whether it is safe before letting it into your true computing environment.
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