Nowadays, in the digital age, privacy has never been more essential. With data breaches becoming more and more commonplace and making the news headlines, information being stolen, and accounts becoming hacked, ensuring that your personal and private information is safeguarded is essential. And as experts in internet safety, here at iolo, we can offer you a solution to ensure none of your information is compromised.
In this expert and handy guide, we will explain just some of the methods you can implement to protect your identity and information online.
The Best Ways to Secure All of Your Information
Install Protective Software
One of the best ways to ensure that your information is secured is to install antivirus and antispyware software, to find and remove any dangerous pc infections, and protect your system from any attacks.
Or protect yourself whilst online with a PC privacy software, like iolo’s Privacy Guardian. You can protect your private information whilst browsing online, through a reliable and trustworthy software that works to block access to your sensitive data, device info and habits.
Ensure That You Have Strong Passwords
When creating a password for an online account, it is essential that it is strong and uncrackable. So, think beyond words or numbers that a potential hacker could easily figure out, such as your birthday, the name of your spouse, or the name of your pet. Choose combinations of lower and upper-case letters, numbers, and symbols and change your passwords regularly.
It’s also better to create a unique password instead of using the same password across multiple sites, as this could lead to you losing vast swathes of your personal information and privacy – password management software can help you achieve this. Here at iolo, our ByePass software allows you to generate random, unique, and unguessable passwords with an autofill feature so you don’t have to worry about remembering them, giving you peace of mind that you are not going to get hacked and have your information stolen.
Do Not Overshare Your Information on Social Media
For most of us, especially nowadays, having a productive online presence is incredibly important. We all know somebody who posts every detail of their life on their social media pages, which cannot only be irritating, but can be highly dangerous, and can put yours and their private information at risk. It is important to be aware of just who is viewing your posts, so make sure that you have checked the privacy settings on your accounts and be careful when sharing information such as your location, hometown, birthday, or other personal details, as these can be used to gain access to your accounts and result in a major data breach and privacy violation.
Be Careful When Clicking Links or Attachments
Hackers and cybercriminals are excellent at fooling their victims into clicking on fake links supposedly from their bank, cell phone network, electric or gas company, tax service and other legitimate organizations such as social media platforms. Such fraudulent links typically contain malware such as keyloggers, viruses, or ransomware, all of which are used to steal your personal information. So, our advice to you is this – Think before you click. Spelling errors, poorly worded messages, email addresses that don’t seem right that include a promotion, ‘winnings’, or prize, and random communications from various companies should be treated with skepticism and profound caution. It’s better to manually enter the genuine URL of the organization in question to log into your account to verify any communications before clicking on any suspicious and seemingly random links. In doubt, get in touch with the organization through their legitimate communication channels to make sure you’re not being scammed.
Check the Website is Secure
Before entering personal information into a website, take a look at the top of your web browser. If there is a lock symbol and the URL begins with “https,” then the site is genuine and secure. There are a few other ways to determine if the site is trustworthy, such as a website privacy policy, contact information, or a “verified secure” seal on the page. Unsecure websites typically contain malware that can be used to steal your information and violate your privacy, which is why it is always essential to verify whether or not the website is secure.
Be Careful When Using Free or Public Wi-Fi
When we’re out and about, it can be tempting to log onto a free or public Wi-Fi network – but the risks of this often go unnoticed, and arguably outweigh the benefits. Online shopping on such networks can be incredibly risky, as most free public Wi-Fi networks have essentially zero security measures in place, which means others using the same network could easily access your activity and steal your credit card details or other personal information. That’s why it is important that you should wait until you’re at home or on a secure, password-protected, trusted and legitimate Wi-Fi network before making any potentially risky online purchases that could compromise your privacy.
Once Online, It's Always Online
It is impossible to erase something from the internet, which is why you should be mindful about what you post. Whether you’re on a public or private forum, a social media platform, a video sharing website, everything you post will be cemented on the web forever – and the whole world has access to it forever too. Even something you posted years ago and forgot about can be accessed by cyber criminals and used to violate your privacy, steal your information, hack into your accounts, and potentially cause you financial loss. The lesson here is, always be mindful about what you’re willing to share in the public sphere.
Make Sure Your Information is Backed Up
If your computer is infected by ransomware, a virus, malware, or it crashes and becomes inoperable, the only way to fully guarantee that you will be able to retrieve all of your lost personal data is by backing it up and doing so on a regular basis so that you can recover and change it should it fall into the wrong hands. This also means that any deleted data such as passwords, bank details, or social media login details can always be recovered.
The Importance of Online Security
The importance of being able to secure your personal and private information online cannot be understated. Nowadays, cyber criminals are using more and more sophisticated ways to violate the privacy of their victims, steal their data, and even cause them financial loss. That is why it is so crucial that you are able to follow the steps and advice listed above, so that you can minimize the risk of falling victim to such crimes and guaranteeing a safe online experience.
iolo – Your Online Safety Solution
Here at iolo, we pride ourselves on being able to prioritize the online safety of our customers to ensure a happy, stress free, online experience. We offer a wide range of products and services at highly competitive and affordable price points to ensure that your identity and information are completely protected as you browse the web. We offer effective privacy and identify theft protection solutions that ensure the security of your personal and private data, giving you the utmost protection and peace of mind. For more information on how we can help you, do not hesitate to get in touch with our friendly team today.
