How To Stay Secure On The Internet

When you want to make your home secure, you lock the door. When you want to prevent your bike from being stolen, you use a bike lock. When you want to protect your valuable possessions, you keep them in a safe. But what do you do to protect your identity online?

Making your devices, online identity, and activities more secure really doesn't take much effort. 

It’s no secret that the internet is home to some shady characters, but staying safe online doesn’t require you to turn your internet off. Instead, stay mindful. Here are 10 most important tips for staying safe online.

1. Keep Personal Information Professional and Limited

Potential employers or customers don't need to know your personal relationship status or your home address. They do need to know about your expertise and professional background, and how to get in touch with you.

2. Keep Your Privacy Settings On

Marketers love to know all about you, and so do hackers. Both can learn a lot from your browsing and social media usage. But you can take charge of your information. As noted by Lifehacker, both web browsers and mobile operating systems have settings available to protect your privacy online. Make sure you have enabled these privacy safeguards, and keep them enabled.

3. Practice Safe Browsing

You wouldn't choose to walk through a dangerous neighborhood—don't visit dangerous neighborhoods online. Cybercriminals use lurid (vivid) content as bait. They know people are sometimes tempted by dubious content and may let their guard down when searching for it. The Internet's demimonde is filled with hard-to-see pitfalls, where one careless click could expose personal data or infect your device with malware. By resisting the urge, you don't even give the hackers a chance.

3. Use secure public Wi-Fi networks

You should never use an unsecured (unlocked with no password) public Wi-Fi network unless you absolutely have to. And if you do use one, avoid logging into any of your accounts online or on apps or entering in any personal or financial information.

Hackers are known to set up fake Wi-Fi hotspots to lure unsuspecting web surfers in. Once someone logs into the fake Wi-Fi, the hacker can see basically everything they do online. Scary.

4. Use a Secure VPN Connection

To further improve your Internet browsing safety, use secure VPN connection (virtual private network). VPN enables you to have a secure connection between your device and an Internet server that no one can monitor or access the data that you’re exchanging.

5. Use Strong Passwords

Passwords are one of the biggest weak spots in the whole Internet security structure, but there's currently no way around them. And the problem with passwords is that people tend to choose easy ones to remember (such as "password" and "123456"), which are also easy for cyber thieves to guess. Select strong passwords that are harder for cybercriminals to demystify. Password manager software can help you to manage multiple passwords so that you don't forget them. A strong password is one that is unique and complex—at least 15 characters long, mixing letters, numbers and special characters.

6. Use two-factor authentication

Two-factor authentication requires you to verify your identity after you’ve logged in using your username and password. In some cases, you’ll be asked to verify your identity by entering a code sent by text to your phone or by email. Other times, you’ll have to answer a security question. Whenever two-factor authentication is available, opt in. It may take you a couple of extra seconds to log in to your accounts, but it can make it less likely that other people will be able to log into your accounts, too.

7. Don’t click on strange-looking links

Viruses and other forms of malware often spread because you click on a link from someone you know. If you receive a link that looks strange (for instance, it may have typos in it) from a trusted friend or family member, contact them to ask if the link you’ve received was sent on purpose. You might have to wait a bit to watch that funny viral video, but better safe than sorry. If you don’t want to wait for a response from your friend or family member, copy and paste the link into a reputable link checker. But remember: Don’t click on the link.

Only log into sites that start with https:// or you may also see a padlock symbol next to the site address. The “S” stands for “secure,” and it means the site is encrypting your data.

8. Be Careful What You Download

A top goal of cybercriminals is to trick you into downloading malware—programs or apps that carry malware or try to steal information. This malware can be disguised as an app: anything from a popular game to something that checks traffic or the weather. 

9. Be Careful What You Post

The Internet does not have a delete key, as that young candidate in New Hampshire found out. Any comment or image you post online may stay online forever because removing the original (say, from Twitter) does not remove any copies that other people made. There is no way for you to "take back" a remark you wish you hadn't made, or get rid of that embarrassing selfie you took at a party. Don't put anything online that you wouldn't want your mom or a prospective employer to see.

10. Back up your data regularly

If you become a victim of malware, such as ransomware, you might not be able to get your data back. That is, unless you’ve backed up your data.

When you back up your data, you can make certain kinds of security breaches less problematic. If a hacker encrypts your data and demands a ransom to unencrypt it, it’s not going to be that big of a deal if you backed it up a week ago.