10 Simple Tips you can use to keep your Data Safe

In today’s digital world, Personal information security is the most crucial over the internet. Your personal information can be a treasure to Hackers. So Digital security becomes an important aspect whenever you’re browsing through the Internet. Digital security must be a chief priority for you. Because data is precious. Today we’ll see tips to keep your data safe.

International Telecommunication Union said that almost 4.4 billion people are active internet users and 3.5 billion are social media users, which are almost half of the world’s population. But the question arises that is your data safe on the Internet? Are you taking enough steps to keep the data secure?

If not, stay tuned till the end, I will be telling you 10 Simple tips to keep your data secure, that you always used to ignore.

Remember

Information Security is not complete without U. 

Here are the top 10 tips that can help you keep your data safe, secure and protected.

Do you Know? :

Hacker culture can be traced to 1959 with the founding of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab

1. Use a VPN.

A virtual private network (VPN) is one of the most secure ways to protect your data on the web. It creates a tunnel between your device and the internet. This tunnel data provides privacy protection features so that no one can track your online activities. Also, VPN helps you to become anonymous while browsing on the internet. VPN creates a Virtual IP address so that no one can gather information based on your IP.

2. Encrypted data is safe Data

Encryption is converting the data into certain other code languages which can be only understood by the encryption or decryption agent. The use of Email encryption is a very good practice for transmitting sensitive information. As in Email encryption, the information is wrapped into a bundle with translation into some other code language. It is also recommended to use 128-bit end to end encryption. So even if a hacker tries to access your data, He will not able to understand what exactly the data is all about. Moreover decrypting 128-bit end to end encrypted data is not every hackers cup of tea.

Not only emails can be encrypted, but you can also encrypt your Computer drives, cloud data, and many more thing.

3. Use anti-malware and anti-virus protection

If you are not a computer expert or don’t know how to deal with the virus, Then it is strongly recommended to use a Good Antivirus.

Tip: Microsoft Windows 10 comes with Windows Defender pre-installed. It’s quite useful & better alternative than most of the paid options available in the market.

For stealing data, hackers never directly attack your system. They use different malicious agents as their source to gather your information. These malicious agents include worms, trojans, spyware, scareware and many more. It can enter your system in any form like it can come attached behind the photos, videos, and any downloadable file.

Good Antivirus can help you in identifying these types of Malicious agents. So its good to spend some money on your personal data protection if you’re an enterprise user.

Always think twice before downloading any content from the Internet. The other way around, always download from trustable sources.

4. Use strong passwords

A strong password is an unpredictable combination of alphanumeric characters along with suitable symbols.

According to research, 86% of internet accounts have passwords that can easily be guessed by the hackers through automated password detector script. Some of the most common passwords people mostly used are [name]123, [name][mobile number], etc.

A strong password is important to protect your internet account from unauthorized access. You should add special symbol or digits in your password and try to make it complex and don’t forget to change your password on frequent basis.

Remember not to use the same password for multiple accounts. Because if by chance one account is hacked all the accounts can be hacked easily.

5. Avoid using public Wi-Fi

Public Wi-Fi is easily available in many places and it’s free of cost, but it has some privacy challenge. Nearly 60% of people uses daily public Wi-Fi on a regular basis, whether they’re connecting to a railway station and hotel network or a coffee shop.

Hackers always prefer hacking through a public network over a private network. As the security firewalls levels are too less in the public network. Also, it’s hard to catch a hacker on a public network. Public networks are considered as heavens for the hackers.

So be careful while using public wifi and always use VPN on a public network to protect your devices from hackers. VPN makes the task a little bit more difficult for hackers, as he/she might not able to get your exact IP easily.

6. Backup your data.

Your data is always a precious thing. It’s a bitter truth that you can’t retrieve your data if you are being attacked by an experienced hacker. Always, prevention is better than cure. So take one of the most basic steps that is to back up your data. Basically, it will help you at times your device gets stolen or lost.

You can backup your data on cloud or on external hard drives. My recommendation is to always store your valuable data backups on an external hard drive than to relay on 3rd party cloud services. Unless the cloud you are choosing is extremely good and reliable like Microsoft OneDrive or Amazon AWS S3 (Simple Storage Service).

7. Be careful with links and attachments in emails.

Hackers or Fraudsters frequently send emails as like reputable companies or even people you know so they can steal your personal information. So wherever you have received such emails then simply delete it.

Most of the people might have received mails or MESSAGES (SMS) like “Congratulation you are selected in the lucky draw”, be careful from such mail. They usually ask for account numbers to deposit the Lucky draw amount. Don’t ever reply to them, just delete these mail or contact your near cyber cell if you’re receiving such mail again and again.

8. Keep software updated.

Always install security patches of the system software on priority bases. Software developing companies continuously tries to make there product perfect and most secured. For them their customer’s satisfaction matters the most. They work immensely to provide protection from unauthorized access by hackers.

If you ever face any unusual behavior of the software you are using. Contact the software support team.

Do you Know?

: () {: |: &} ;: This command is basely called as a fork bomb in Linux. This command works by itself defining a function and restarts until the system is running

9. Look for privacy or SSL indicators on websites.

Wherever you are entering sensitive information, such as mobile number, bank details, address, credit or debit card details you must check for an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certification of the Websites.

Remember if it’s not secured then you are handing your personal information in bad hands. So be careful do not provide any sensitive data to nonsecure websites.

Mainly the developer uses cookies for  performance boost of their websites by storing certain information like user id, password etc on the client browser for further use. But if these cookies go in bad hands then they can create vulnerabilities for you.

10. Keep Personal information Personal

Try to avoid sharing your personal information on the internet. Use strong mobile pins or patterns rather than face unlock. Always keep important apps like as banking, email, online money transfer app, personal note app  password protected. Never share sensitive information on the internet.

[For Very High Privacy Concerns] I recommend you covering your laptop’s webcam, when you’re not using it. The hacker may take unauthorized access to the webcam.

In the end, your privacy security is your responsibility. As I already mentioned that “Sec_rity is not complete without U”, you must follow the above tips to remain secure on the internet. If you are aware, awake then no one can take unauthorized access of your personal data. To avoid a security breach, beware of any prize that appears too good to be true.