Keep Your Online Personal Identity as Secure as Possible
It’s kind of scary! It’s like walking around your house naked with all the blinds and curtains open, giving a show to every peeping Tom. That’s what surfing the Internet without doing anything to protect your privacy is like. Anyone… and I mean ANYONE can see what you do online, what websites you visit, when you surf online, whether you store personal and financial data on your computer ….and more. However, this doesn’t have to be the status quo. You can take action and protect yourself from cyber criminals, peeping Toms, and anyone else who loves to stick their nose where it doesn’t belong. Just because your default Internet surfing is too public, doesn’t mean you should stop using the Internet. No… you just need to hang some curtains and put in those blinds. There are actually 7 safe-surfing activities you can practice to better ensure your privacy. Still, these are just ‘best practice’ Internet surfing methods and can’t offer you absolute secure protection. The only way of ensuring your complete and total privacy is by contracting Virtual Private Network (VPN) services.
Your password strength is crucial to protecting your identity online. There are just too many bots that run automatic password trial and error configurations. Your passwords for all your private information should be a combination of letters and numbers, with uppercase letters in random places. You can also substitute numbers for letters, mash multiple words together or deliberately misspell words. If you're good at keeping track of your passwords, the best type of password is a random string of characters.
Although security questions are used for a backup, this doesn't mean you shouldn't put as much thought into them as you do your password. Use questions that only you know the answer to, or better yet, don't directly answer the security question at all, instead, deliberately enter specific numbers, letters or combination of both.
Use reliable anti-spyware and antivirus programs to prevent infiltrations of malware, worms and computer viruses. These can infiltrate your computer and send information back to an Internet criminal or website looking for personal information.
If you don't know who the sender is, don't open any attachment that comes from them. This could be malware. You should also beware of e-mails that sound too good to be true, it usually is. Never give out your personal information to e-mail recipients you are unsure of, no matter what they offer. When, or if, you receive an e-mail from your bank asking for your personal information, make sure you call the bank and verify this e-mail was sent from them.
1 - Make Password Stronger
2- Pay Attention to Those Security Questions
3- Make Use of Applications
4- Beware of the E-Mail from People You Don't Know
If you don't know who the sender is, don't open any attachment that comes from them. This could be malware. You should also beware of e-mails that sound too good to be true, it usually is. Never give out your personal information to e-mail recipients you are unsure of, no matter what they offer. When, or if, you receive an e-mail from your bank asking for your personal information, make sure you call the bank and verify this e-mail was sent from them.
5- Check Credit Card Statements Carefully
Monitor your credit card in your bank statements to make sure that there are no strings charges. Criminals will sometimes try a one dollar deposit or withdrawal just to make sure the number works before trying to purchase larger items later. Remember, to ask for credit report every year and look for credit accounts are charges that you didn't make. This will tell you whether someone else your credit information.
6-Use Common Sense When Surfing Online
if something doesn't feel or look right when you're surfing, then click off the site. Stay away from suspicious sites, and quickly leave any you come across without clicking on anything. Warning signs include websites that have excessive amounts of advertisements, those that have sexual intent or have too many sexual implications; this usually an occasion of an unsafe site.
7- Remove Personal Information from Public Websites
If you have listed personal information like your phone number or address with social media platforms like Facebook or MySpace, you should remove these, as an identity thief may be able to use this information to establish accounts in your name.
8- Keep Track of Your Children's Surfing Habits
Your children’s surfing activities could put you and them and risk. Talk to them about safe surfing practices and consider using current parental control software to protect them further.
9- A VPN Service is Your Best Option
Although, all of the above suggestions can help protect you against cyber crimes, the best type of protection is secure surfing through encryption services. This works by encasing your surfing activity in a virtual tunnel protecting it from all other Internet access. This type of service is offered by a Virtual Private Network (VPN). When you contract a reliable VPN service company you protect all of your Internet surfing, whether you are visiting websites, sending E-Mail or chatting with friends. In essence, using a VPN means you don't have to worry about all of the above steps. All of your Internet activity is kept completely safe.
Bottom line
Although there are some basic, and common sense activities you can perform yourself to keep your identity safe online, the easiest way of protecting yourself is by surfing through a VPN service. In the Internet world this is comparable to driving around in a bulletproof car. And the best part is that a reliable VPN service is really inexpensive, often costing about five dollars a month.