With simply a tad of digging, anyone can unearth your personal info including your email address, your telephone number and even your actual location.
If that’s not worrying enough for you, it’s similarly simple to discover your basic pay, your largest assets and where all your family members live and work. To avoid this, you can subscribe to a VPN and get China IP for free.
Still Unbothered? It takes minutes to figure out the security questions needed to access your bank account. Someone access every email you’ve ever sent; see each website you’ve ever visited and know wherever you’ve been over the most recent three months.
The reality is your data has never been more unsafe than it is today. Whenever you stay in a hotel, use public Wi-Fi or take a flight, you are sharing your email address and some other confidential information.
Companies, apps and websites you use are gathering this info and selling it to the highest bidder. This procedure is known as data mining. When your info falls into the wrong hands, there’s no telling what could happen.
Which Measures Can You Employ to Protect Your Online Privacy?
Use Complex Passwords
Using a complex passcode is one of the best ways to secure your information. This is because hackers will use snooping tools to decipher your passwords, and if the password is not strong, then they will gain access to your information.
More complex password in this scenario means a password that is longer than eight characters and has symbols, numbers and both uppercase and lowercase letters. Also ensure not to use recognizable patterns for your passwords such as your name, your date of birth, name of your favorite pet and plenty more besides.
You are also advised not to reuse passwords for various platforms. Instead, use multiple complex passwords, and if you have issues remembering all of them, you can use a password manager such as LastPass.
Perform A Social Media Accounts Audit
The measure of info we share on our social media accounts is mind-blowing. Not only does it pose a security hazard, but also a reputational one as well. This is because everything we post can be our downfall in the future.
The first thing you need to do is update your account privacy settings to restrict the data that websites are gathering and limit those can see your posts. You can use a tool like Data Detox Kit to help you out.
Secondly, audit your post history to ensure you don’t have any posts that could be amateurish or don’t represent the person that you are in real life. If you find any deactivate them or delete them.
Use Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) For the Most Sensitive Accounts
The thought behind two-factor authentication is relatively straightforward: It affirms your personality using two factors rather than one. For instance, an ATM expects you to have both your actual bank card and your four-digit pin to get money.
Platforms like Google permit you to set up 2FA, most commonly using your phone as a second factor prior to giving you access to your account. If someone cracks your code via the dark web or by other means, they can’t be able to access your account.
Always Use an Ad-Block on Your Browser
Using an ad blocker on your browser is very crucial as it filters out any unwanted advertisements. Such ads may re-route you to websites that will compromise your device and steal confidential information such as your passwords.
With ad blockers, it is relatively easy to find free ones and also premium ones. The difference comes down to how well they work to filter out ads. The premium ones are more likely to filter out more ads.
Use A VPN When Browsing on Public Networks
VPNs, conceal your IP address and encode your data over the web. This is particularly significant when you’re browsing on public Wi-Fi, which is a common way that hackers use to access your info.
Ignore Spam
Kindly do not click on emails from unknown parties and also never click the links or attachments that accompany them. Spam filters work pretty well, but there are sophisticated spams that will mimic your friends or bank.
Clicking on such links is suicidal as the hacker can be able to wipe out all your money from your bank account and even take control of your entire company network if the mail domain belongs to a company.
Final Thought
All in all, maintaining your online privacy is not difficult; you have to employ the measures we have discussed above, and you’ll be safe. However, it doesn’t hurt to be proactive and further comb the web to see if your details have been leaked.
