How to stay safe online

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Cyber security & it’s awareness is the need of the hour. In this modern world most of the people know how to use the internet but, most of the people don’t know about the online threats & how to secure the internet.  Everyone should be aware about the online threats .As the technology is progressing, we are getting more dependent on them to make our life easier by the online ways  of daily life stuffs. Let it be socializing at Facebook, online business deals & presentation, cloud storage, paying bills online, making reservations or sending  private emails etc. everywhere we need extreme privacy, authenticity , security & confidentiality . 

 But there are many threats around the internet such as information warfare, cyber terrorism, malware,  violation of data integrity, phishing, Disturbed Denial interruption of service and so on, by which the malicious hackers try to steal  private data, high sensitivity business information , and much more. They even collect our personal information and sell them to the other people for huge price of money. People who are not aware of these things can be easily a victims of such incidents.
Here I have some basic security tips for everyone that can be helpful to avoid such threats in our daily life activities.

PASSWORD: Don’t use the same password in every websites, because if a website’s security is compromised then a malicious hacker can have access to all your data, he/she will may use your LOGIN data at many other websites  to get access, If you have used the same password and user ID the hacker will gain access automatically.
Always use a unique & strong password that the word should not exist in any dictionary , consists of capital letters, small letters, numbers and special characters .example: ‘Xs&5@a3zt! M’

TWO FACTOR AUTHENTICATION : It means authenticating in two steps, in this feature you have to prove yourself twice that you are the real one, first by entering your user id & password , then in the second step you will receive a code in your cell phone which you have to enter in the website. It helps more to protect your account from unauthorized access in your absence.  Almost in every daily usage websites such as Google, Apple, DropBox, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter has this feature.

SYSTEM SECURITY: Use a good firewall & antivirus in your computer, update them regularly to protect your system from virus, worms & network attacks.  Stay away from junk software that’s says to make your system run faster, cracks & hacks of software & accounts. These type of software are mainly backdoors & key-loggers  that records your keystroke, interrupts in the normal process  and lead to  vulnerability of system .

HTTPS SECURED SURFING:  If you attempt to do any financial transaction online like online shopping, paying bills and online banking etc, always use https:// instead of http:// . The https protocol sends the information to the server over secured socket layer rather than in plain text. It will protect your financial data from being sniffed by malicious hackers.

 SMARTPHONE PROTECTION:  Smartphone has brought the world into our fingertips, It allow us to communicate , navigate, connect the internet, shoot the pictures and much more, that means we have thousands of data in our smartphone, data like contact numbers, personals images, email id, record of instant messages & much more. Now a days Govt. & some malicious hackers targeting the smartphones users for surveillance & to collect data. So beware of everything what you use, what you install from outside, with whom you share. Don’t install junky apps which are for fun & entertainment , because they are spam and backdoored  and can harm your phone.  Install apps from only the trusted apps market . And always notice what type of permission does the apps seeks
, for example an app for playing video will never require to access your contact book, if any apps ask you to permit for any unnecessary access , then it is for sure that the app is spam/malware/backdoor.

SOCIAL NETWORKING: Social networking is our another world where we spend most of the time than eating , sleeping & studying. According to recent survey of Indian Cyber Cell, about 40% of crimes against women originate from social networking websites.  It is an important place where we add strangers and make them our friends, we share images & videos with them , we chat for countless  hours without knowing much about them , so here we need  extreme security & privacy.
Before adding anyone into your friends circle make sure that the profile is legit and belongs to the actual person as it is named, check his/her profile updates that there is not any offensive contents. Change the accessibility mode of you photo albums & updates only to friends or  with the people only with whom you want to share. Hide your address & keep your contact number private, that means only viewable to you. If you see any fake profile or someone is bothering you then block them & contact the website’s help centre.

PREVENT IDENTITY THEFT: Hackers are all around, they can retrieve a lot of information about you, network connection &  your device just by your IP address (Internet Protocol).With the retrieved information the hackers can easily try to get access into your device , even they can mask their IP with your IP address.   If you are doing very confidential work and sending very sensitive data over the internet then you must hide the real identity of your device, by using secured proxy servers , or setting up own virtual proxy network or by using tor browser which hides your real identity.

BEWARE OF PHISHING: Phished website are cloned pages of original website, they looks almost real like the original website but these pages are trap to collect the User ID, Email id & passwords. Remember, any legit website doesn’t ask about the details of your email account.  For example, Gmail id & password, Facebook user Id & password etc. If any website ask you to enter these, then  no doubt that it is a fake/phished page.

INTERNET COOKIES :  Cookie is a small file that is generated from web server & placed in the user hard disk for the user identification. Malicious hackers can steal your cookie & hijack the season between you and webserver . If you use public computers at office, college, cyber café or somewhere else, then clean the cookies after use. You can do it by going into the browser settings.

“Remember, nothing is fully secured in this world, everything is breakable, we can only apply some tricks  and methods that will take time to break which is enough to aware ourselves  .”












TOPICS:
HOW TO STAY SAFE ONLINE
BASIC CYBER SECURITY TIPS
HOW TO SECURE YOURSELF ONLINE
TIPS TO STAY SECURE ONLINE