Today, in this digital era, we use internet everywhere in all aspects of our lives. We use internet connected devices more often. We do online search for information required, online shopping, banking , playing games, and connecting with friends and family through social networking. As a result, our mobile devices contain a good amount of personal information about us. This may include banking/financial records and health information, that we want to protect. If your internet connected devices are not protected, cyber-criminals and other fraudsters may be able to get access and steal your personal information. Spammers could use your computer to send spam that looks like it came from genuine source. Viruses or spyware could be stored on your computer, slowing it down and destroying files. By using good practices and safety measures, you can protect your privacy on your mobile devices and computer. Follow these tips to help you lower these risk while you’re online.
1. Always update your computer operating system: – Make sure you update your computer operating system as soon as they available in the internet. Patching your machine time to time is good for staying safe from hackers and viruses. You can also consider to upgrade your operating system to a newer version, that would also help you to fight against hackers, cybercriminals and viruses.
2. Consider implementing a firewall: – A firewall is designed to prevent unauthorized internet users from accessing your private network connected to the internet. You can implement firewall in either hardware or software form or a combination of both. So implementing a firewall would give you safety from hackers( unauthorized internet users). Some operating systems also come with inbuilt firewall. If your computer operating system has an inbuilt firewall, then whenever you connect to the internet make sure if the firewall is enabled or not. If your firewall is not enabled, enabled it immediately.
3. Use up to date browser to access Internet: – Besides updating your computer operating system, it is also important to use a up to date browser to access internet. Up to date browsers come with recent patches for the vulnerabilities affected to the browser. So remember always use up to date browser, whenever you are accessing internet.
4. Use good and reputed antivirus: – Always try to use premium quality antivirus to protect your computer from hackers and viruses, and remember always update your antivirus to stay safe from newly emerged viruses, trojans etc. Don’t forget to scan your computer at a regular interval to remove viruses from your computer.
5. Besides antivirus, try to use anti spyware also: – Anti spyware detect and remove spyware software from your computer. Now a days many anti-virus programs comes with anti-spyware ability. Just check, if your anti-virus doesn’t protect you from anti spyware, consider using a spyware to secure your computer from spyware attack. It will also protect you from hacker and cybercriminals, also spywares.
6. Use VPN whenever you are accessing internet though public networks, WI-FI hotspot: – If you are accessing internet through public Wi-Fi hotspot, then cybercriminals can monitor what you are doing on the internet. They can steal your confidential information. To protect yourself from cybercriminals, at the time of using Public Wi-Fi hotspot, always USE VPN. By using VPN, your connection will be encrypted. So cybercriminals won’t be able to monitor your activity, and won’t able to steal your confidential information.
7. Always visit trusted and secure websites: – Never visit an untrusted and unsecure website. Never shop from untrusted website. Check the URL, if it starts with https:// then the site is secure. If it starts with http:// then your connection from your computer to the website server is not secure, and you should avoid these websites. So moral of the story we should not purchase and visit unsecure websites.
8. Be aware of spams and phishing mails: – Never open a mail if it looks phish to you. Cyber criminals can send you phishing emails. You may find any malicious links or malicious attachments. If you click the link it will redirect you to a phishing website and ask you to enter your confidential information. Other ways if you download the attachments you will unknowingly download malicious payloads, which will install in your computer and you may fall victim of a cyber-attack.
9. Use strong password, which is hard to guess: – Always make sure you are not using a week password for your online accounts, and never use same passwords for all your online accounts. Use strong and complex passwords for your online accounts, which are hard to guess. You can use a combination of upper and lower case letter, numbers and computer symbols as password. You can also take help from online password generator services, which generates strong passwords for you. If you are thinking about how do you remember all these strong passwords, I know it is absolutely impossible to remember strong passwords. To solve these problems you can use password managers, there are some of the password manager, they have free and paid plans as well. Examples : – Lastpass, Dashlane etc.