Yes, social networking sites have brought us the good, the bad and the ugly. They are great avenues for keeping in touch with friends, following up with colleagues and especially for reaching new audience for our businesses. I would assume that none of us is new to facebook ads and fan pages which are among the popular business aspect of social features. Some marketers even out-rightly recommend products to their friends on their walls. I have personally bought a couple of products this way – from Willie Crawford’s wall. In addition, he also shares a lot of other ‘gooddies’ and ‘infos’ and thus when the product recommendations come along, you won’t even wait for another breath before moving your mouse over the link. Other social platforms like Twitter, Google+, the now hot Pinterest and others also hold some marketing and branding opportunities to our marketing efforts and we continue to love them.
However, while we appreciate and gain from the benefits there are to social sites, we ought to remember, also, to observe every of the rules and practices necessary to keep us and our activities as safe as possible. Social networking sites serve as a converging ground for people from different cultures, believes and with various interior motives from around the globe. This simply underlines the need for adequate protective measures. So, I won’t leave you to brainstorm on how you can stay secured while using social networking sites; here are three practices that have helped me a great deal. And maybe they will help set your foot on the right track.
#1 – Always Turn Off Your Computer When Not In Use
While on the World Wide Web, your computer is assigned an IP address by your ISP, and it is able to retrieve web pages from other computers/servers using their IP/server addresses (for those of us that are not techie-savvy). Hence anybody aiming to gain access to your computer must find and launch attacks using the IP address of your machine. So when you leave your device ON and connected to the internet, like most of us do even when we are not using them, you are increasingly making your device vulnerable and inviting attacks.
I could remember when I was still using an unlimited broadband connection; I use to leave my computer connected for days with neither shutting down nor disconnecting from the internet. The Norton internet security suite, which I used then, blocks between 5 to 10 attacks on daily basis – who knows what may have been happening in the background! And guess what, the device couldn’t last me another year; its either it needs a reformat today, or a program file is corrupt the next day, I simply had to let it go.
So it is really important that you disconnect your device from the internet and please take the time to click that Shutdown button once you are done using your machine. Those extra seconds could save you from a lot of system trouble-shooting problems in the future, not to talk of the hazard of losing delicate business or personal files to hackers and social network scammers.
#2 – Don’t Share Personal Details
If there is a need to send your personal details like phone number, email address, residential address, and any other important information that personally links to you, why not do that through chat, email or preferably through a text message if you already know the person’s phone number? Posting any of these details on social sites is letting them loose to the world and anybody from anywhere can pick them up for any purpose they so desire.
#3 – Use Privacy Settings
There is no social platform in this era that doesn’t have several privacy settings meant to help users regulate how their friends and the public get access to their activities. If you haven’t gotten familiar with these features on your favorite social site, it will pay off to spend some time and play with them. If you can’t find it, contact the site support or administrators for directions. I love writing about digital services and often use my social account to alert my friends and followers about a new post, say on a new Mixbook coupon or Pinnacle Studio codes, but that doesn’t mean I don’t guide my personal data by controlling what friends, followers and social audience get to see about me. Even while I do this with my personal social accounts, I have learnt to keep my private life private.
Nobody said you shouldn’t use social networking sites. Heck! Who doesn’t have a social account these days? There are huge personal and business benefits inclined to their usage that you can’t simply ignore. But while you dig these sites, don’t forget those safety practices that will ensure your safety and make every second you spend on them worth your while.
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Guest article written by: Steven writes for technology blogs where he shares his knowledge on internet safety issues. He reviews antivirus and antimalware products, PC monitoring software and internet security apps. For more tech news and tips, visit VerybestSoftware.net.
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Guest article written by: Steven writes for technology blogs where he shares his knowledge on internet safety issues. He reviews antivirus and antimalware products, PC monitoring software and internet security apps. For more tech news and tips, visit VerybestSoftware.net.
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Wow, your Norton used to block 5 to 10 attacks a day?. That’s alot of attacks if i say. I think its high time i upgrade from the free antivirus i am using.
It is true that there could be a treat by using social networks. Every social interaction has risks. I must add that attacks to your computer are not that easy as people may think. In order someone may gain access to your computer, you must “accept” to do it. I mean here is where social engineering happens. The advice here “do not accept anything from someone you do not know” i.e. unknown facebook apps, not cerfified Firefox plugins or pirated software that may install a trojan in your system. Thanks for sharing.
You should definitely also make sure to use a different password for email and EVERY social site. Just in case your account gets compromised on one site, at least you can make sure it’s safe on other sites.