With the advent of new century, everything has gone online. From online shopping to online friendship, things have definitely become easier, more importantly faster. However, it has not come with the advantages only. Like any other thing, it has a different aspect as well and that deals with your privacy.
Does it not bother you when you receive a letter from a stranger at your home address? It’s not obviously a great feeling either when we receive calls from stranger? Well, things can get even more serious than only the theft of your personal information. Whenever you are buying something online, you may be exposing your bank account information or credit card details to a rather vulnerable database as well. Misuse of such information can result into heavy financial loss.
Let me give you another example of misuse of information. You can upload your photograph in a social networking site and the same can be used for impersonating you. These are just some of the examples that can be caused by breach of online privacy. Now, the more important part comes. How do you protect your privacy when you are online!
Use your basic sense
Remember one thing! No matter how secure the social networking sites may claim to be, it’s still easy to fetch out information from them about you for an experienced stalker. You must not divulge any important information about you or your work in Facebook that may be mishandled. This does not only limit to Facebook but the other social networking sites such as Twitter, MySpace etc. Also, pay proper attention before sharing your pictures. This can be very risky and a picture can easily be handled if falls on the wrong hands.
Protect webcam
Video chatting, don’t you love it? However, will you like others to see your private pictures when you don’t intend the webcam to be open? Surely not!
When you connect your webcam to the computer, hackers can potentially spy on you through the webcam. Well, the solution is pretty simple:
- You need not to connect the webcam to your computer at the first place when you don’t intend to use it.
- If you are too lazy to unplug the webcam from your computer, just cover with a piece of cloth when you don’t intend to use the same.
Usage of dedicated system for being online
It may sound like a pretty expensive alternative to avoid online phishing for many. However, if possible, this can turn out to be the safest one as well. You can keep your financial information in the same computer from where you access internet and thus all of your personal & confidential information may get exposed to the worldwide audience thanks to the phishing attacks or malwares. So, just use a machine for the sake of being online, no other things done in there, not a single.
However, if you cannot afford to buy a laptop for using online exclusively, you can get a good antivirus program for you. Reputed anti-virus programs such as Norton can save you from most of the security attacks and you can even get good discounts when you buy the anti-virus through valid coupon codes.
Always take backups
Even after all the precautionary measurements taken, your computer may still be affected by a virus. A good idea will be to take system backups at regular interval such as on weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis. If you don’t have a good amount of hardware space in your system to store the backups, consider using the renowned online storage providers such as Carbonite.
We may accept it or not, but social networking has become a part of our daily lives now. We cannot ignore it, but at the same time, it is immensely important to be secure and don’t overdo things. Talking with a stranger does not need to be risky, however, your privacy is in your hands and only you can control that how much you reveal to them. A norton coupon code or a carbonite offer code can help you when it comes to providing your system sort of additional security, but, your privacy is ultimately your own responsibility. Think before you speak online next time, you may just be divulging more than what’s required.
Guest article written by: Christofer loves to write about social networking, how to use it for promoting an online business and the safety measurements to take while dealing with strangers online. If you have any questions related to this article or want to share your thoughts, please feel free to use the comment feature.
I like the addition of backups. Sometimes a clean wipe is the only way to truly get that secure fealing, and if you don’t have things backed up, it can be tricky, especially if a virus spreads through all your documents. With that said, make sure you have strong anti-virus on your backup drives as well!
I’m glad you mentioned common sense – far too many people I know complain about how much big companies know about them and yet whose fault is that?
Don’t share anything you don’t want other people to know. Ever!
As you are a social networker have you ever used something like BitDefender SafeGo which can give you some insight into the people you are interacting with?
Since the arrival of many social networking sites, online privacy has become a big concern. Generally you would see many fake ids and these guys use real photos of someone else to their own promotion. I would only suggest you to connect with people whom you really know, don’t share your personal and essential information online.
I would suggest to use services provided by Disconnect. They offer to disconnect you from tracking services employed by the major social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Google.
Thanks for the tips. One of the best to secure your private files is to backup it to removable disk. Configuring your Firewall on your router will be one of the answer and never give your password (PC,Laptops,Routers, etc) to strangers.
the best is do the back up remotely by subscribing for instance with Dropbox.
Even if the local hard drive is contaminated, you can access them remotely.
Dropbox is wonderful I use it religiously. It is a very reliable service as well and easy to use. I have a general rule with regards to the internet and privacy: If you don’t want the world to know it, don’t write it. You should also encrypt local files and take security very seriously.
Dropbox is really solid solution to the very common problem. Free makes it even nicer.
Hi.
Also be very careful with scam emails. There are emails that you will receive that want you to believe that they are from somewhere (for example paypal) but actually they are not. They will put the logo, the name and it may even say that they are sent from the real email, but they still could be scam. If they are asking for your password or link to a site that is a copy of the original, then it is most likely a scam. Fake websites look like the original, but in the address bar when you visit them, tha main domain is not the real one. For example instead of paypal.com, it could be one letter missing or wrong, or it could be paypal.com.somethingelse.com. Here the main domain is somethingelse.com.
Regards.
Internet can be a dangerous place. Privacy is something that is in stake while you are browsing looking for information, enterntainment or jobs..
Be careful everyone, thanks for sharing this and let’s hope more people will read it.
thanks for your tips. now a day its very difficult to keep data secure from hackers. but you made it easy by this knowledgeable post.thanks
Privacy is in danger more and more these days. Fraudsters find ways to defraud people in ways you wouldn’t imagine. Privacy protection best practices should be followed all the time.
Great tips it is something that is becoming more and moer of a problem, you need to protect yourself now rather than later.
Thanks for your tips. One of the best way to keep data safe and secure, backup it to removable disk.
Nice tips, but as the days are passing by, the online security is getting in danger. In fact, many websites are just working to collect the data although they say that all our data and information is safe with them, but who know what they do with that…
Great. Hackers are constantly there to put you in danger. You should put any personal information, and the best tip is, make a backup of your files always.
We must have to keep extra attention to data which is most important and very personal when use the internet on the regular basis because nowadays, hacking of the data is very common things in this internet market.