If you have been on the internet for long enough you probably know what the dangers of being hacked are or perhaps even have been hacked before. Getting hacked can be a real ordeal, your files may be deleted or you might not be ever able to retreive them again. Pictures of your friends and lost ones gone or even pictures, stories or emails shared that you rather wanted to keep secret. It happens all to often, even to the best off us. In the worst case scenario your bank accounts might even get hacked and emptied and you will have to explain to your landlord why you are unable to pay your rent on time.
The internet isn’t a playground and its not getting safer either, every day there are new hacks, virusses and methods to get into your account, and the longer you wait to actually do protect yourself the easier it will for these so called “Hackers” to take advantage of you. Hackers don’t care about the person behind the accounts, there is no “Online Thieves Code” that stops them from taking away every little piece of internet property you own, wether this is your paypal, facebook, twitter or email account, its all valuable in one way or another.
Protecting yourself:
Protecting yourself against hacks and viruses is easy and can be done through various methods. People always think you have to be an expert in the field to do this but this isn’t true. You can teach yourself the knowledge how to protect yourself AND others within the time it takes you to read this blog post. Once you know these you can even make money of it by offering people services to clean their computers, making them faster and removing virusses. So lets get to the point.
There are a couple of major points I will discuss, you shouldn’t skip any of them even if they may sound boring, just keep on reading and by the time you are done you should have general understanding on how to protect yourself from hacks.
1. Use your Head and Common sense
2. Keep your virus scanners up to date
3. Change your passwords
4. Use aditional levels of Security
5. Use on-screen keyboards whenever possible
1. Use your Head and Common sense
While this might sound like common advise given by any other security site, this is one of the most underestimated points people don’t seem to understand when they are on the internet. The lack of common sense also is one of the main reasons why people get hacked. The internet is no playground, and not every webpage on the internet gives you what it promisses, a lot of webpages are misleading and dupe you into subscribing to them or downloading malware through programs you will never use after installing once. If you google for something and imediatly find result try to ask yourself if these results are to good to be true, and if they sound like they are then they usually come with a catch. Don’t just download any program and use a virus scanner when you do. Another helpfull thing you can do after finding anything you want to download or submit your info to is to perform these 3 google searches
1. Is “Insert site name or program name” a scam
2. “Insert site name or program name” malware
3. “Insert site name or program name” Virus
This often will show you if other people have encountered problems with the program and often people on forums will suggest alternative programs that might work.
2. Keep your virusscanner up to date.
A lot of people have the virusscanner the computer or laptop they are using came with. This virusscanner usually is up to date when you purchase the machine, but since there are thousands of new virusses each day it is very important to keep your virus scanner up to date. Usually the virus scanner that come with your computer are trial versions and wont work after 30 days or only partially work, which is a big problem in the combat of virusses. Thats why you should uninstall these free trial virusscanners and get a real one. These are 3 of the most resourcefull, free and easy to use virusscanners you can use
1. Microsoft Security Essentials
2. NOD32
3. AVG
Even if some of these virusscanners are trial versions too, they will still offer you the protection you need after the trial has stopped.
3. Change your passwords
You can read more about why you should change your passwords every where here
4. Use aditional levels of Security
Some services like Gmail offer addtional layers of security. Before you login you have to cross verify a code from your cellphone and without that code you cannot login. These codes are often acquired through apps for smartphones and are very handy. Lesser layer of security only apply to password resetting, so that if somebody hacks you, there is no way for this person to go so far that you can never log back into your accounts because you can still reset your password with your smartphone. Now if you somebody steals your smartphone you might be in some bigger trouble.
5. use a on-screen keyboard!
If you are logging into your accounts in school or other public places you should consider using a onscreen keyboard that comes with every instalation of windows or not at all. Hackers can keylog computers in public places even without installing anything. It is possible to place a little device on the USB so that every keystroke is recorded. If you use a on-screen keyboard hackers will be unable to get your password when you login.
