How To Keep Online Information Safer
One of the biggest concerns that most of us have when we use the internet is about the secuirty of our personal information. We have all seen some big stories about how hackers and phishers have stolen billions of dollars. In fact, experts estimate that hackers made off with almost half a billion dollars last year (2009) alone! There is no way to prevent all online theft, but with some caution, we can reduce the risk quite a bit.
What is Phishing?
This is a funny term, and of course, it comes from Fishing. Think of the terms Fat and Phat. It means those fake, but very real looking, emals that come from different businesses or banks. They may tell you that there is some type of problem with an account, and of course they will have a link you can click. However, if you would just take a second to place your cursor over the link they want you to click, and then look at the status bar (bottom of your browser), you would see that the internet site is not the one they say it is at all!
See, the text of the link may not be the actual website that link will take you to. For instance, look at this link :
The real website is http://over50web.net – but I can make the link say anything I want! I am not a Phisher, but I could create a website that looked like your bank or favorite online store. Then I could send out emails with text that made you think it was a link to the real website. But the actual link would point to my fake website where I hoped to gather your personal information!
Tips To Avoid Hackers
Hacking is a bit different than phishing. Phishers hope to trick you into revealing your personal inforation on their own capture pages. Hackers just want to come in and steal it.
- Be very wary when logging in to any websites from a shared computer, like at the library, internet cafe, etc.
- Keep security software up to date on your own computer.
- Use wireless encryption on your own home network.
- Make sure you look at your bank statements regularly, and do not hesitate to question anything irregular that pops up.
- Use strong passwords with letters and numbers that others cannot guess.
- Log out after every session.
As I wrote above, it would be impossible to prevent every case of hacking or theft. But with some caution, you can greatly reduce the odds so you can enjoy the ease and convenience of online business.
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