The Common Cons and Don’t s to keep yourself safe in the cyber World

the online era brought with itself a lot of benefits and advantages to this world and gave this a biggest shift in the realm of technology.

The developments in this world of technology took us one step closer to the online world with the help of platforms such as Facebook, twitter and instagram and the introduction of smartphones acted like an icing on the cake.

With so many boons came in the dark fear of online viruses in the form of scamsters, fraudsters, hackers who target our personal virtual profiles to deplete us of all the possible online information we possess.

So the larger question is do we stop using the services? is that a permanent solution? Or do we need to learn the precautions to keep ourselves safe?

The answer would be that with every pro there comes a con and thereby is a a list of cons whose causes and solutions are explained further :

1. Easy Security : it is a general trend to keep passwords or security related answers related to one’s own personal information i.e date of birth, name of children, parents or a combination of both which is the first and easy target of any hacker
2. Phishing : in this method the hacker sends a link and a website address which looks identically similar to an actual website which is used to capture all the real information and then target the source system of the user
3. Cloning : the victim usually get calls and sms wherein the hacker tries to falsify the victim into a conversation and try to extract Information from a person to loot the victim
4. Malware and Ransomware : victims in this scenario usually get a link or an update prompt on their phone or the computer which is a program built to give all the information to the hacker entered by us into the sites or portals we access
5. Fake SMSes : this is the source of fake links which go back to point 2 and 4, the messages received are so genuine where the victim cannot make the difference and gets trapped in the web of the hacker
6. The latest Bitcoin Email scam : Lately Bitcoin has been the trend in the market because of its appreciating value and this has become a new tool for cheating people, the hacker in this case sends a mail to the victim reflecting a password which was used by the victim several years ago and falsifying facts about possessing some intimate videos of the victim which in reality doesn’t even exist, the victim thereby is asked to pay the amount via bitcoin which is not backed by any regulatory and no laws governing bitcoin, which can never be recovered if paid.

Let us now look at the solutions to the above problems :

1. Keep strong passwords with random characters which should not be related in any form
2. Use an antivirus or a spam checker in your mobile and computer
3. Do not click links from unknown sender’s verify the facts by searching on google and contacting your financial service provider
4. Never share your details with anyone, including family members
5. Do not panic when you receive such messages, emails and calls be calm and verify the authenticity of such communications
6. Use incongnito mode on your web browser to perform your financial transactions
7. Do not use public wifi networks for any transaction or financial management.
8. Do not leave any account dormant or unchecked for a long time.

so in a conclusion the online world has its own pros and cons and thereby the safety lies in our hands, I.e. wise, ethical and smart use of technology