Throughout the past decade cybersecurity specialists from all over the world were putting tremendous efforts into making the Internet a safer place.
Yet, in 2020 we can state with profound certainty that the Internet can still be dangerous for the majority of its surfers.
In fact, the number of people becoming victims of hackers and scammers is only growing, often as a result of public ignorance about basic cybersecurity best practices.
Therefore, in this article we want to provide you with 5 important online security tips that will help you browse the worldwide web safely.
Here they are:
Use antivirus software
Using antivirus software is probably one of the key online security measures that often gets overlooked.
While, of course, an antivirus doesn’t grant you protection from 100% of online threats, nonetheless it can effectively detect and remove most malware.
Thus, having an antivirus running on your PC or a smartphone is extremely important if you want to be confident about the security of your personal data.
Also, don’t forget to frequently update your cybersec software because not updating your antivirus is almost like not having it installed at all.
Encrypt your Internet traffic
Encrypting your Internet traffic is also a great thing to do as it allows you to protect your private information from being viewed by third parties.
Currently, the best tool to encrypt the data you transmit over the Internet is a virtual private network.
A good VPN allows you to do many things including it can cipher your online data, hide your activities from hackers or advertisers, and even block ISP tracking.
However, before going for a particular VPN provider make sure it can offer you AES-256 encryption as now it’s an industry’s standard giving you the best possible level of protection..
Practice safe surfing
If you practice safe surfing, you leave hackers almost no chance to breach into your device.
The thing is phishing and social engineering work really well for hackers, and typically they rely on these tactics to get their hands on your sensitive information.
By visiting only legitimate, HTTPs protected websites (the ones that start with https:/ rather than http:/) and avoiding to click suspicious links you create a solid foundation for your personal Internet safety.
Come up with unique and hard-to-crack passwords
Each account that you own shall be protected with a unique complex password, especially in these days of frequent database leakages.
If you only use a single password for all of your accounts you can have the rest of them stolen in case just one account gets hacked.
Thus, create custom passwords for each of your accounts.
Also make sure that these passwords are hard-to-crack, which means they consist of lowercase and uppercase letters, numbers, and special symbols.
Enable two-step verification
Don’t forget to set up two-step verification for all the services and accounts that support it.
A two-step verification also known as two factor authentication creates an added layer of protection for your important accounts.
So for example if two-step verification is enabled each time when you want to approve a financial transaction, you have to type in an sms-code that will be sent to your phone.
This helps you secure your funds even if the credentials of your financial account were stolen.