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We spend a lot for time on the internet for various reasons, rather we have too. Internet has become unavoidable part of our daily routine. Whether it is meeting people on social media, booking movie/train/flight tickets, booking a table in a restaurant or making a application for a new job, internet is a must have for all of us. Surfing the internet and surfing the web can be very useful to us, but sometimes, as useful it is, it's very dangerous, too. For example, when we are on particular site, a small pop-up appears and we write our personal information in it. They claim to give as much as 90% discounts, and we are often impressed by it. We type some information like our name, email id and sometimes even our bank details and it is uploaded within seconds. We feel it is safe, but actually it is not. Here are a few guidelines to stay safe during our online activities:
Do not give out your full name, address, or phone number (especially mobile number, as it has internet connectivity these days) to anyone who is online that you do not know and have not actually met in person. They might not be who they claim to be. There are many dummy websites of banks, insurance companies and even of online selling.
Never type in your bank name, bank account number or credit card information unless you are shopping with a well-known or highly rated online business website. Check whether you are under secure transaction information. You may see a gold lock at the bottom of the page to indicate a secure site. When giving any bank details or other information, make sure the connection is secure (https should appear in address bar of your browser instead of http) and the site is perfectly trustworthy. Further, one should remember that not every site which runs https or accepts payments is trustworthy.
Please use only one PC(that too preferably yours) for purpose of online payments. Since the browsers store information without our notice, it is safe to use only one PC(or mobile handset, for that matter) and in no case the public computer like the one on LAN or internet cafe may be used.
Never open e-mail attachments from strangers. Please look at the heading (subject) of the email. The emails with virus always have an impressing headline. Some junk e-mails may contain viruses or spyware that can harm your computer. These e-mails may be automatically marked as "spam" or "junk". If an email is marked as spam or junk by your email account provider, please respect their decision. They have reasons to believe that the said email has been received from non-trusted source. Always be careful to add the contact details of the sending person into your email contacts, as after adding the contact, the email provider marks emails from that person as valid emails.
Beware of mischievous emails claiming to be from online business selling website, PayPal, a bank or a company name you know asking for personal or sensitive information. This is called phishing. The e-mail may inform you that there is a problem with your account/password. There may be a link to click inside. However, actually they are after your account sign-in process to steal your personal details or money from you.
If you decide to meet someone in person whom you have met online, go to a public place and let friends and family know your plans. Have an alternate plan if things turn out badly.
Get a good anti-virus program, spyware remover, and firewall. There are free programs available online like Avast antivirus, AVG Free or Microsoft Anti-Spyware. They are capable enough to block most attempts and alert you if problems are found. However, it is recommended to buy a paid Anti-virus and update it regularly with latest virus definitions.
Change your passwords very frequently (every month or so). Please do not use the same password for more than one account. Also, make sure that your password has something original. A harder way to do it is by mixing up a jumble of letters and numbers, for example, Dont@123jump. The password should ideally have upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers and special characters. It might be harder to memorize, so write in on a piece of paper and keep in your valet or purse. Try to make it very hard to guess, especially if it has your personal information. If you have Gmail account, please opt for a system of 2-step confirmation. It means the email account does not merely ask your password and open. After password, a sms is received from Gmail on our mobile with a randomly generated password. We have to enter the regular password and another password received via sms into our account to sign-in.
Always make sure the site your using is really what you think it is before you enter your details or a password. For example, if you want to log into www.mywebsite.com, then you would check to make sure the site ENDS with (what-ever). It should be “www.mywebsite.com” in specific manner and not “www.videos.mywebsite.com” or anything like that. Usually when there is a dummy site, it generally ends like that (very close to a popular website). The dummy sites are created to try and get your password or get your personal details. The personal details are then sold to marketing sector at a high cost.
Be careful with your details. Always be careful what you say on the internet. Say what you would be saying to some random person on the street. (This means on sites like twitter, facebook, MySpace etc.) Don't say sentences like: “I am going to a marriage at (Insert address/venue here)” or “My name is (Full name) and I stay in particular area”. Saying stuff like this can get you into a whole lot of trouble with people you have never even met before.
While opening the homepage of your email account, you will often see a tick mark saying "keep Singed In" near username and password. Please take care and uncheck it before signing in your account. If you leave it checked, the browser will automatically save your username and password and any other person can easily open your account afterwards.
If the computer is shut down because of power failure or restarted due to system error while your email account is open, please wait till the PC resumes again and make sure that you sign out from your email account. If you keep it just like that, the browser(especially mozilla firefox) will resume the last page(where you have signed in) when opened at later time. In short, you account can be mis-used by other person because of your small mistake.
Now-a-days, a email is forwarded to number of people at one click. While forwarding received email further to your friends, first delete all earlier addresses from the received email and then please enter recipient's addresses in Bcc option. This will prevent unnecessary transport of earlier ids with your email and your friends will also not know to whom you have forwarded the said email.
Please do not use your username and password for any other website for signing in. For example, you have your social networking account on www.mywebsite.com. However, there are other sites which say "login with mywebsite". If you use your mywebsite username and password for signing in any website other than mywebsite.com, this means you give that website an access to your mywebsite account. Now, that website can read your information available on your mywebsite account, which is avoidable.
We cannot monitor all the time what our children see on the internet. Hence it is better to use a good parental control software on your home PC, to prevent our children to visit porn sites or other sites which are not suitable for children. There are many to choose from, but I use and recommend K9 Web Protection software. It is free but very efficient parental control software.
I will keep updating this article as I will come across new tips. Please keep in touch with this page and enjoy internet to the fullest, but without any risk.
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