Identity theft is a real thing and it mostly stems from cybercrimes such as hacking your Social Media Profiles to hacking your online banking accounts. At a click of a button, your most important information can be viewed and downloaded without you even knowing. Chances are, you’ll only realize you’ve been hacked once it’s too late. These days, hackers have become so advanced that we need to take extra measures in protecting what we post online. To avoid being compromised, here’s what to do:
All About the Passwords:
Ensure that you are using a series of complex passwords across all your social media profiles and online banking accounts. Never choose just one password for all. Include special characters, numbers and capital letters so that your passwords are harder to crack. Make it a point to change and renew your password every month and never include pets or family member’s names. Passwords should not just be limited to social media profiles and banking accounts, create passcodes for all gadgets as well. If you have difficulty remembering passwords then use password management systems such as LastPass and 1Password.
Public Wi-Fi:
The easiest way for a hacker to gain entry into your system is through public Wi-Fis. In most cases, Wi-Fi connections that are accessible to the public have no passwords or encryption. That makes it a breeze for hackers to access personal information. What you can do is to avoid connecting to free public Wi-Fi unless you really need to and if you do need to, make sure you don’t use it to log into your online bank account. What you access using the free Wi-Fi, can easily be seen and downloaded by a hacker.
Operating Systems and Security Programs:
Another way to protect yourself from hackers is to update your operating system. Regularly updating your mobile phone or laptop’s operating system means updating its security programs as well. The latest version always makes it harder for hackers to gain access to your system. Outdated systems are easier to break into because they provide little to no security when it comes to sensitive data.
Protect Yourself:
All About the Passwords:
Ensure that you are using a series of complex passwords across all your social media profiles and online banking accounts. Never choose just one password for all. Include special characters, numbers and capital letters so that your passwords are harder to crack. Make it a point to change and renew your password every month and never include pets or family member’s names. Passwords should not just be limited to social media profiles and banking accounts, create passcodes for all gadgets as well. If you have difficulty remembering passwords then use password management systems such as LastPass and 1Password.
Public Wi-Fi:
The easiest way for a hacker to gain entry into your system is through public Wi-Fis. In most cases, Wi-Fi connections that are accessible to the public have no passwords or encryption. That makes it a breeze for hackers to access personal information. What you can do is to avoid connecting to free public Wi-Fi unless you really need to and if you do need to, make sure you don’t use it to log into your online bank account. What you access using the free Wi-Fi, can easily be seen and downloaded by a hacker.
Some great advice by Amadou Diallo of Forbes, “Don’t make the mistake of thinking that requiring a password makes a public hotspot more secure. If that password is written on the counter or being handed out to customers who ask for it, that’s as bad as having no password at all.”
Operating Systems and Security Programs:
Another way to protect yourself from hackers is to update your operating system. Regularly updating your mobile phone or laptop’s operating system means updating its security programs as well. The latest version always makes it harder for hackers to gain access to your system. Outdated systems are easier to break into because they provide little to no security when it comes to sensitive data.
Protect Yourself:
- Two-step verification: An effective way of keeping your information safe is using the two-step verification process available in most websites these days. Websites such as Google and Facebook has this and it requires you to authenticate your log in information with another device before you are successfully allowed to log in. This is an added safety measure to ensure that the user is the real person who is logging into the account.
- Anti-virus: Some hackers and account compromise can come in a form of a virus. Hackers are able to disguise themselves with the use of malware and other types of viruses. When this virus infiltrates your gadget, not only is your memory wiped but your account information as well. Invest in anti-virus or anti-malware programs. They may be costly but this is protection you need against cybercrimes.
- Hard Drive Wipe: In the event that you will sell an old gadget especially computers, never forget to do a complete hard drive wipe. Delete all previous saved details and restore to default settings.
Author’s Bio: Joel Ekstein is an eCommerce retail expert with over 12 years experience in the industry. He has had experience in buyer and inventory forecasting, marketing, and expanding customer base in new markets. Instead of the notion that offering 100% customer satisfaction hurts 20% of profit, Joel has proved that 100% customer satisfaction increases customer engagement and customer base which leads to 25% profit increase. http://www.protect-o.com/| twitter.com/Protect_O
