The use of the internet is becoming more and more widespread. It is used on a daily basis by a lot of people, and many things that we used to do manually or personally have also become dependent on the internet. Paying bills were made online, as well as shopping or meeting friends. Almost anything that you can think of is can now be done online and what comes with it is a risk. In doing these things you need to provide certain information that could compromise your security and it could lead to identity theft.
Being online does not only risk your personal information, but there are also websites where you could accidentally download malware or viruses that could cause your system to slow down.
There are certain tips you can keep in mind in order to use the internet free from any worries and those are in the lines below.
Do Not Freely Give Your Information
A lot of people have been victims of scams or phishing scams due to giving sensitive information like bank account or credit card information. Phishing scams come in many forms. It could be an email sent to you by a company you know or have transactions with, then pop-ups on websites or calls received which encourage online users to disclose their private information to be able to avail of a fictional prize or free giveaway.
Some Phishers would use real logos of legitimate companies to defraud you and even fake email addresses that resemble the real company’s email. These messages or emails should be double-checked or better yet ignored if you want to check then you should visit their website to see if it really exists and check for any number you can call to confirm and see if the information given to you is really reliable.
Update Your Software And Antivirus Programs
It is very important to update your software and other programs because newly released updates contain fixes on bugs of previous versions of the software. An cybersecurity expert who does penetration testing, Cyber Security Specialists, confirmed that these fixes are very important because these bugs could be used by hackers to infiltrate your system or to create malware that could potentially infect your computer system.
It would also be better if you turn on the automatic updates on your application software, so it would not be a problem if you ever forget to update.
Use Two-factor Authentication For Your Emails And Any Other Online Accounts
Two-factor authentication makes your account much more secured. This sends a notification or alert message to your phone when your account is logged in from an unfamiliar device that you have never used. Two-factor authentication can be used for social media accounts, google accounts, online banking applications, and others that are supported. This is really efficient because even when someone has successfully obtained your password and username, they would not be able to immediately open it because of the alert, and this would give you enough time to take the necessary precaution needed.
Visit Legitimate Websites
You need to be careful of the websites you visit and make sure that those are legitimate. Secure websites could be identified; websites with “https” are legitimate websites because they are secured with SSL Certificates that secure data as it is passed from the browser to the website’s server. You should also be mindful and do not click on any suspicious links or advertisements on a website because they might be malware or viruses.
Being careful and staying secure is a very important thing in the online world because there are a lot of people who take advantage of the online user’s unawareness of the risks he could encounter when he does not make sure that his connections are secure.
Interesting related article: “What is Cybersecurity?“