The
Internet has become an essential resource for all of us. We rely on the
Internet to send/receive emails, post/share photos and messages on social
networking sites, shop for clothes, search for information, etc.
Free
public WiFi hotspots have also made it increasingly convenient for us to
connect to the Internet when we are away from home.
Unfortunately,
some of us are too casual and careless with how we manage our personal
information and activities online. This leaves us vulnerable to identity theft
and invasion of our privacy.
As you
visit a website, login to your email, post an update on Facebook, or do any
other activity online, you inevitably leave digital footprints that can be
tracked and traced back to your identity.
Additionally,
using public WiFi leaves you vulnerable to hackers and cybercriminals stealing
your private information such as your passwords, credit card information, and
bank account information since most public WiFi connections are not secured.
Having
your personal and sensitive information fall into the wrong hands could prove
very expensive and cause major inconveniences for you.
HERE ARE SOME EYE OPENING STATISTICS ON
IDENTITY THEFT
12.6 million U.S. adults were victims of identity
theft in 2012, which accounts for 5.6% of U.S. adults.
The cost of identity the in 2012 totaled
$21 billion. The average victim spent $365 and 12 hours to repair the
damages.
Who is Watching and Tracking You?
So who has access to your personal information? Who
can read your emails and your Facebook updates? Who can track your web browsing
activities?
Each time you go online and go about your business
with emailing, Facebook updates, visiting forums, or checking your bank
statement, your activities can be monitored and spied on by the following
people:
YOU’RE ISP (INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER)
Each time you use the Internet, your activities are
logged by your ISP. Your ISP assigns an IP address to your device each time you
connect to the Internet.
From your IP address, your ISP knows everything you
do online, including the browser you use, the websites you visit, the emails
you send and receive, the files you download, etc.
And since your ISP knows your IP address, they can
also identify your name and location. In most cases, it’s nothing to worry
about. However, it’s possible that a government official can invoke a court
order to demand access to the logs and your ISP will need to hand over any
information requested.
As the recent NSA privacy scandal reveals, this happens
more often than we thought.
ADVERTISERS AND CORPORATIONS
Your personal information and online browsing
behavior data are very valuable to advertisers and corporations. These data,
which companies mine and then sell or trade without your consent, help
advertisers determine which products or services to promote to you and which
ads to show to you.
If this bothers you, then you should take proper
precautions not to share and disclose your personal information and web
browsing activities.
HACKERS AND CYBER CRIMINALS
Hackers and cyber criminals make a living out of
stealing people’s private and financial information. They use a variety of
tools and methods available to collect your private information little by
little.
Over time, they might just have enough information
about you to steal your identity. Once that happens, it becomes very easy for
them to use your identity to transfer money from your bank account to their
accounts, purchase expensive items online, apply for credit cards in your name,
file fake tax returns or perpetrate other crimes.
One of the easiest ways for cyber criminals to
steal your private information is by sniffing your network traffic at public
places that offer free WiFi connections such as coffee shops, airports, and
hotels.
Did you know that most WiFi connections are not
secure? Every time you connect to the Internet via unsecured public WiFi,
hackers can use freely available software to sniff your web traffic and
steal your passwords, credit card numbers, bank account information, or any
other sensitive data. And recent research has shown that even your
password-protected home WiFi network is highly vulnerable to hackers. It’s scary!
YOU’RE EMPLOYER
Your employer wants you to be productive at work
and can monitor your online activities to make sure you don’t waste too much
time on social media sites, dating sites, or doing other personal activities.
THE GOVERNMENT
The government may be spying on you. They also can
demand your private information from companies such as Google, Facebook, and
your ISP. Check out
the reports from Google to find out how often they get national
security letters from the government requesting information about people.
Ways to Protect your Privacy & Identity Online
It’s a fact that you are not going to have complete
control over who is monitoring and spying on you online. But there are
certainly steps you can take to reduce your risks. The more educated you are on
the tools and methods available, the more you can do to reduce your risks of
identity the, fraud, and spam.
1.
DO AN ASSESSMENT OF YOUR ONLINE ACTIVITIES
Doing an
assessment of your online activities is the first important step toward
protecting your privacy and identity online.
What private and
personal information are you storing, sharing and posting on your computer,
mobile devices, emails, Facebook or other social networking sites, or even
cloud storage sites such as Dropbox.
How safe are these places and who may be able to
access them? What are the consequences if your personal information falls into
the wrong hands? These are the questions you have to ask yourself in order to
assess your risks and to help you prepare the necessary actions to protect
yourself.
2.
INSTALL THE LATEST ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE ON YOUR DEVICES
An Antivirus software is a must-have utility to
protect your computer from viruses, spyware, Trojans, and worms. These
malicious programs are designed to invade your privacy and steal your personal
data. As such, it's critical for you to protect your devices with the latest
antivirus program(s).
Keep in mind that antivirus software protects
only your device, not your internet connection.
There are plenty of free as well as paid versions
available. Just be sure to use good antivirus programs from trusted companies.
Watch out for fake antivirus programs that use popup messages to tell you that
your computer is compromised. According to PCMag.com’s tests,
AVG and Ad-Adware’s free anti-virus programs scored the highest in their
malware cleanup and malware blocking tests. For paid solutions, Webroot,
Norton, and Kaspersky’s anti-virus products have the highest ratings.
Keep in mind that antivirus software only protects your device, not
your internet connection.
3. USE A PERSONAL VPN (VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORK):
While antivirus programs do a good job of protecting your computer, it
doesn’t secure your browsing session and your Internet communications. A VPN is a perfect complement to an
antivirus program.
VPN protects you by masking your IP address and by encrypting all your internet communications
VPN services such as the Hotspot Shield VPN protects your
privacy online and secure your web sessions by creating a secure “tunnel” on
the Internet between the VPN server and your device.
Thus, any information transmitted is encrypted, protecting your private
and sensitive information such as your passwords, credit card information, and
banking information from eavesdroppers and hackers.
VPN technology also enables you to hide your IP address by replacing
your IP address with the VPN server’s IP address.
So the sites that you visit only see the IP address of the VPN server,
not yours. This enables you to remain anonymous online, thereby preventing your
ISP and the government from tracking your web browsing activities or anything
you do on the Internet. If you are traveling or just wanting to hang out at the
local Starbucks and want to use free WiFi to connect to the Internet, a VPN is
a must-have utility to protect your privacy and prevent hackers and snoopers
from stealing your personal information.
A VPN is a must-have utility to protect your privacy and prevent hackers and snoopers from stealing your personal information...
In addition to
protecting your privacy and securing your web sessions, another benefit of a
VPN that may be useful for some people is its ability to bypass firewalls and
filters to enable you to unblock any websites and get
unrestricted access to your favorite content from anywhere.
This feature is very useful for travelers. Due to censorship and rights
agreements, popular websites and services such as YouTube, Twitter, Hulu,
Netflix, Gmail, Skype, and Pandora are restricted in certain countries. But
with a VPN, you can have unrestricted access to any content you want without
censorship and without anyone tracking your every moves on the Internet.
A VPN is easy to use and setup. If you are looking for a reliable
privacy protection solution that also provides secure web connections, then a
VPN is a must-have application for all your computers and mobile devices.
Be careful about what you share and who you share your personal information with on Facebook:
Only add as a “friend” people that you personally
know. Review your friends’ list and "unfriend” people that you don’t
personally know or trust.
Remove information such as your address, emails, phone number, the year
of your birth, and other sensitive information on your profile.
Do not share any sensitive and private information on wall postings,
messages, or feeds. This goes double for any information about your location
and whereabouts. This can be used by criminals to target your home when you are
away.
Go to the privacy settings and update
the privacy settings to control who can see your status updates, posts, photos,
and other personal information.
Create a separate email account to use for all your social networking
sites.
Be careful about using Facebook Apps. Some of the apps can access lots
of your personal information and sell your personal information to other
parties.
4. BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SHARE ON SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES
Social network sites such as Facebook have very vague and complicated
privacy policies. In fact, the entire Facebook business model is based on
leveraging your personal information for advertising and marketing purposes.
5. FOLLOW THESE
EMAIL SECURITY RULES
Exercise caution when opening emails, clicking on links, or downloading
attachments - One of the cyber criminals' favorite tricks is to pretend to be
your bank or other legitimate businesses and ask you to provide your private
and personal information or ask you to click a link to a site where it will ask
you to enter your bank user name and password. This is called phishing and it’s
quite common. When you see these types of emails, just delete them.
Additionally, do not download any attachments if the email seems
suspicious, even if the email is from the person that you know. Your friend's
email could be hacked and it could send malicious messages to you and anyone
that's on your friend's email contacts.
Lastly, use a secure email service. For free email services, Hotmail and Gmail are among the
safest. If you require more security, then use email services from secure email providers
such as Hushmail and VaultletMail, which encrypt the emails that are
in transmission as well as emails that are stored on servers.
Be careful about
what you share and who you share your personal information with on Facebook:
Only add as a “friend” people that you personally
know. Review your friends’ list and “unfriend” people that you don’t personally
know or trust.
Remove information such as
your address, emails, phone number, the year of your birth, and other sensitive
information on your profile.
Do not share any sensitive
and private information on wall postings, messages, or feeds. This goes double
for any information about your location and whereabouts. This can be used by
criminals to target your home when you are away.
Go to the privacy settings and update
the privacy settings to control who can see your status updates, posts, photos,
and other personal information.
Create a separate email
account to use for all your social networking sites.
Be careful about using
Facebook Apps. Some of the apps can access lots of your personal information
and sell your personal information to other parties.
6. MAKE SURE SHOPPING SITES ARE SECURE
If you are doing any online transactions, make sure the site uses SSL,
which is a security protocol that encrypts all your data. You can tell if a
site is using SSL by the presence of the “HTTPS” at the beginning of the
website address and the padlock icon.
Follow the guidelines below to protect your passwords from hackers:
Create a
long password (9 or more characters) and include a combination of lower and
upper case letters, numbers, symbols, and punctuation marks. Do not use any well-known
information as part of your password. An example of a strong password would be
something like this: hi7*Lpk:9s!
Do not use the same
password for multiple sites and services (i.e. using same password for your
banking site as your Gmail account).
Change your password every 6 months or so, especially
passwords to your banking sites, email accounts, and credit card websites.
7. USE STRONG PASSWORDS
Most people tend to use their names, birth dates, driver’s license
numbers or phone numbers to create passwords. The most common, believe it or
not, is to use the word “password.” This is a big mistake as it makes it easier
for hackers to crack your account.
If you have too many passwords to remember, you may want to use a
password manager like Lastpass (it’s a free browser plug-in) to help you
securely manage all your passwords. With Lastpass, you only have to remember
one password. That one password is all you need to enable you to log you in to
any site with your saved login credentials. There are also several popular
password lockers for your mobile device, which you can have with you at all times.
8. DELETE OR CLEAR
THE TRACKING COOKIES
Tracking cookies are small pieces of code that websites attach to your
computer to store information about your online activities.
Information about you can then be sold to companies around the world
without your consent.
If you are concerned about what information about you is collected and
how it is used, you should block or remove unwanted cookies on your browsers on
a regular basis.
By following these guidelines and using the tools recommended above, you
can go a long way in protecting your privacy and securing your identity!
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