5 Ways to Help Protect Your Personal Information Online
Without Internet, life seems to be difficult. It is not only for continuing important activities like business deals, accounting/banking, connecting socially. But is also for fun like gaming or observant purpose. These activities require feeding personal information and thus the risk of insecurity arises.
It is well said that “Every problem has a solution”.There is nothing to worry if safety measures are being used while surfing online.
Since privacy issues have been troubling out PC user over long time, so they are quite aware of basic preventive measures. But, the need of high security can only be done by taking whole command on each and every access to your PC.
Here, some of the most simple but high secured way to protect your personal information online:
Check the Website Security status
Keeping your browser secure is the best way to protect your personal detail online. While browsing we visit lots of websites just to satisfy our curiosity, but we should not ignore the safety. While providing any information to the websites, verify that it is safe or not. Many times, malicious websites sends the data entered by the user to multiple sites without seeking permission. There you go… your information is leaked.
So before making any online transaction or feeding your personal details check the website secure icon. It is a green-colored “lock” icon that means the the website is safe. Also the website address should be “https”, here “s” means secure. To know more about the site click on the “lock” icon to see its certificated, cookies information and also manage the site settings.
Set A Strong Password For Your Online Accounts
Generally, people use same password everywhere or just use “123456” or use their personally-identifiable keyword as the password. Although, we do it to make it easily remember. But it is not safe at all. Because once hacker get success in cracking password, its all over. To this you may think..it won’t happen to me… But you never know. So if you are also among the the one using the above techniques of setting password, then change it right now.
Use a unique combination of alpha-numeric digits, including symbols to make it complex for the hackers to crack it. Never use same password to every account. Also avoid saving your passwords.
Although, its a tough job to remember such complex numbers, as today we have like 50 accounts include social media, bank accounts, entertainment pages and so on. But its not too tough.. There are password manager tools that will help you to manage your all passwords at one place and also help you to generate secure passwords that no one can crack.
Avoid Clicking Phishing Emails And Links
Phishing emails are the backdoor for hackers to get aware of users personal data feed online. Security experts recommend not to open any unidentified file attachments from unknown sender. These emails may subject as an invoice, job offers, lottery, or from any government officials. Before opening or clicking any link within the document, research a little about its logo and manually search its URL by typing it in Google. There are various malware that uses phishing email campaigns to spread like Ursnif- data stealing trojan, DarkHydrus and ZEUS.
Also it is a good step to avoid clicking on on fake links ,ads, banner, or download application departed by unknown source. Such Phishing activities will only lead you to trouble. Thus use preventive measure to get secure your personal information.
Use Security Software And Keep Software up-to-date
Cyber threats are now become far more active and can easily exploit any unprotected device. The reach of threats and its affects are expanding worldwide. If you leave your system unprotected, then someday a ransomware threat may attack and will encrypt all your data. Ransomware are now lucrative business, as the victim has left with no option other than paying the ransom to get the decryption key. Use of anti-virus software/anti-spyware programs are very important as they will give you real-time updates of your security. HitmanPro.Alert is one such anti-malware program that analyses threat behavior and stops its activity.
In addition, keep firewall for the system updated. This can add security to to user’s personal information feed online. But, be attentive and set preference to update such protections often quickly. Use a VPN service to keep your data over the website encrypted.
Never Over-Share Your Personal Data On Social Networking Sites
Posting too much personal data online helps hackers to identity your personal details. This makes easy for cyber criminals to collect necessary information required to work on stealing account privacy. Limit the sharing of personal information like your location, phones numbers, browsing activities, websites you visit, photos and so on. These details can be easily traced online from the social accounts.
Misleading of information further leads to increase in phishing emails, lots of commercials on browser, web jacking, and identity frauds.
So, take a preventive step to secure your online personal information. Also it is very important to stay updated of the latest threat trends and spread the word of caution to family and friends. Keep your system protected with anti-virus program that is the least you should do to secure your privacy.
If you need any further guidance, feel free to write in comments. we will surely help you.
