How to be safe on INTERNET!
By: Raj Upadhyay
Tags: Online Safety, Internet, Data, Information Security, Cybersecurity

Not all mistakes can be undone with “ctrl + Z”

Data breaches are becoming more frequent nowadays. If you’ve never been the victim of a data breaches, then you are lucky, but don’t let your luck lead you to laziness. Make your online identity and activities more secure by following steps.

1. Use Unique Passwords

Generally we often use SAME PASSWORD for different websites. we often seen people set same or similar passwords for different websites like Facebook, Gmail, Twitter etc. Consider one case “ABCXYZ” website got hacked and hacker found your account credentials (username,password). Now Hacker will try to use same credentials for banking websites or Facebook or any other website and most of the time hacker able to access accounts because you set same credentials for different website.

Use Different Passwords for every single online account you have.

We can use Password Managers because as a human we are not good at remembering complex (strong) passwords.

2. Turn on Two-Factor Authentication

Three common factors used for authentication: Something you know (password) Something you have (smart card/mobile phone) Something you are (fingerprint or iris scan)

These days most of the websites provides Two-Factor Authentication. Two-Factor Authentication means one more extra SECURITY LAYER. Consider a case where your personal information like ( login credentials) are available with Hacker. Now Hacker tries to login to some website with help of this credentials BUT website will ask for OTP and Hacker will not able to provide it so your account will be safe.

If personal information in an account is sensitive or valuable, and the website/application offers two-factor authentication then you should enable it.

3. Choose Strong Passwords

Passwords are one of the weakest spots in the whole Internet security structure. People tend to choose passwords that are easy to remember (such as “password” and “123456”), which are also easy for Hackers to guess. Often people set passwords like “FistnameDOB”, ”FirstnameLastnameDOB” or sometimes people set their cat/dog name as passwords. these passwords are easy to guess because this information are available in internet. Like you post your picture with your dog and you put some caption in which your dog/pet name is mentioned. same way your first name, last name and date of birth are easily available on Internet.

Strong password is one that is unique and complex, at least 15 characters long, mixing letters, numbers and special characters.

4.Clicking Without Thinking

Do not open any url without knowing the sender of the link. Many times people see some emails and they click on the link without knowing from whom it is coming from. Malicious Actor Host uninvited content like spam, malware, phishing pages on the internet and which can be accessed by URLs.Attacker uses Malicious Url as an attack vector to compromise the target.Don’t click links in emails or text messages unless you are sure about it’s from legitimate person.

Before clicking any links, inspect links and ensure they’re from trusted senders before clicking.

More one liner tips

Use a Secure VPN Connection. Careful about What You Download. Purchases Online From Secure Sites only. Use Different Email Addresses for Accounts. Turn Off ‘Save Password’ Feature in Browsers Back-Up Your Data

You’re Not Immune

Often people think “it won’t happen to me,” or “I don’t visit unsafe websites.” Cybercriminals don’t discriminate in targeting all sorts of users. Be proactive. Not all mistakes can be undone with “ctrl + Z”.

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