Online fraud is a multibillion-dollar industry. There are criminals lurking in every corner of the internet and you can easily become a victim if you are not careful. They can defraud you in several ways. One of the most common ways involves stealing your personal information by hacking your email account or getting access to your computer by fraudulent means. This is why it is extremely important to take every security measure available to protect your computer, email accounts, user accounts and documents.
Here are some best practices for protecting your computer:
• Protect your computer with a user password:
If you have personal information stored on your computer, the first thing you should do is to protect it with a user password. The password must be a unique string of eight or more characters made of lowercase and uppercase alphabets and numbers. Do not use your name, nickname, birth date, city, phone number or other easy to guess words as your password.
• Install anti-virus and anti-malware software:
Viruses and malwares do not only disrupt computer operation, they are also used by criminals to spy on your computer and steal personal, financial and business information. The best protection against viruses and malware is provided by anti-virus and anti-malware software. Set the virus information to be updated automatically. Perform a complete virus and malware check regularly to ensure that your computer is clean at all times.
• Install a firewall:
A firewall is hardware or software solution that acts as a barrier between your network and another network that does not fulfill an applied set of rules. It consists of gateways and filters that prevent unauthorized access from unsecure and untrustworthy networks. Firewalls are also able to block dangerous traffic. Personal computer operating systems like Windows come with built-in firewalls. Make sure that it is activated.
• Protect your emails, user accounts and documents with unique passwords:
Criminals are always looking for an opportunity to hack your email and user accounts because they are a rich source of sensitive information. Therefore, you should protect them with unique passwords that are impossible to guess. Never use your name, place of birth, date of birth, phone number and credit card number as your password. Avoid simple adjacent keyboard combinations, such as “12345678” or “qwertyuiop”. Your password should be at least 8 characters long and it should consist of uppercase alphabets, lowercase alphabets and numbers.
• Never enter any sensitive information in a public Wi-Fi:
Information passing through a public Wi-Fi can be easily intercepted by hackers lurking in the vicinity. So, never enter your user name, password and other sensitive information on websites that have access to your money or can affect your reputation when using public Wi-Fi. Use public Wi-Fi only for surfing the net.
• Make online payments through SSL links only:
Whenever you enter your personal information, such as your credit card number and social security number, remember that there are criminals waiting to intercept them. The only completely secure way to enter such information is through Secure Sock Layer (SSL) links. SSL is a technology that encrypts the information passing between your computer and the website you are accessing, so that any information falling into the hand of cyber criminals will be incomprehensible and useless to them.
• When in doubt, check the website’s Server Certificate to make sure that its SSL is authentic:
To get an SSL certificate, a website needs to have a unique IP address, a piece of text generated on their web server called Certificate Signing Request (CSR), correct contact information in WHOIS record (the ownership and contact information associated with their domain name), and documents validating their business or organization. When in doubt, read the website’s Server Certificate to make sure that its SSL certificate is authentic.
• Harden your browser: