It is nearly impossible today to stay disconnected from the Internet, – we research and blog online, share on social media, monitor our brands, handle crisis, and personally enjoy searching for knowledge and staying connected to the people in our worlds. The price of interacting, and particularly shopping online (which women often do), is in how easy now other people can steal your personal and billing information. 2013 was a very hacked year, and this year sadly is not much different.
Of course you should use a solid anti-virus and firewall, but it is the little mistakes we do because we don’t pay attention that can cause the most damage. So use these strategies to stay safer on the Internet (as a 100% full protection simply is not possible):
Get a good antivirus program to protect your computer and all connected devices from the most common attacks. Almost every solid software is available in free basic version if you can’t afford to get a subscription plan. Believe me, you never want to list through thousands of restored files after almost completely losing all your valuable data.
Read how to Back Up Your Blog or Risk Losing Everything.
Use strong passwords with lots of numbers, letters, and special characters, and make sure they’re different for all your blogs, social profiles, email accounts, subscriptions, and so on.
Here are few more security measures if you’re blogging on WordPress; and be sure to play safe when selecting your WP themes.
Don’t believe everything you read online. Especially if it’s something so unbelievable like winning $100,000 prize money in a random raffle, and even more if they ask for your personal and bank information and some money to be able to send you your reward. If you do this, you’ll probably never hear from them again. Cracked has a great post listing more reasons why you should be very careful with your sensitive data on the Internet.
Yes, social media is about connecting, but do you really want to be that close to everyone? I’m sure you’ve learned through the years, and probably even unfriended, unfollowed, more or less removed some people from your social networks and circles. Because, all these people can not only see your posts and information, but also share and comment on it, which shouldn’t be allowed to just anyone. So be careful off whom you add on social media.
Set the privacy settings so you’re open for communication with your blog’s broader audience, but still protected to high enough standards, particularly on your social media profiles. Click the links for more details on privacy settings on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
Always keep your WiFi connections locked with a secure password. You don’t want other people having access to your network and potentially causing damage. Also, don’t connect to wifi networks that you’re not sure they’re safe. It’s better to be safe than sorry, right?
Read how to Secure Your Blog from Hacker Attacks.
Online marketing is becoming more aggressive and intrusive, and many times when we open a website, lots of pop up ads and windows open, some of which could be linked to harmful websites, potentially getting our computers involved too. Look for a good pop up blocker to avoid such issues; AdBlock is one of Chrome’s most used.
Being aware of the dangers that exist in the online world, keeping that in mind, being careful when and where we click, to what extend do we expose ourselves, is that really necessary, is probably the best way to stay safe on the Internet these days. Do you agree? What’s your experience? Share your thoughts in the comments.
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