Safer Internet Day:Tips for Online Safety

Safer Internet Day is upon us, and hopefully this event will promote and safer and more usable world wide web. 

The internet is powerful and is one of the most useful tool in pretty much anyone’s life in this modern world, but the vastness of the web comes with its security issues.

Overall the net is a brilliant place full of enthusiastic people who are just using it for work or leisure, but unfortunately there is always people out there looking to use it for malicious means.

I have compiled together a few tips on how to remain secure online and hopefully not come to any harm when surfing the web.

1.Privacy 

As I mentioned in my post last week, 5 Tips to Keep your kids safe online, Privacy on the internet is key to your own security. 

On the majority of the social media sites such as Instagram and Facebook, you can choose who can see your content. This is vital in the protection of your online presence.

If you don’t set up the correct privacy settings for your social media account anyone will be able to view your content and do what they would like with it.

This small solution will hopefully put your mind at ease as only the people you want will see your content.

 

2.Passwords

Having a strong password is vital when it comes to online safety. Passwords while hard to remember are essential to keep your information safe.

As you can be seen from this article, the most used password on the internet is ‘password’. Having this as your password is a sure-fire way to get hacked. 

It is important to have a strong password, which could not be easily guessed and contains both letters and numbers and possibly special characters such as ‘!’ or ‘?’.

Hackers could potentially use your information in combination with password cracking software to get your password. Because of this you should not include personal details that you have shared online such as date of birth.

A good password should hopefully keep your accounts secure.

3.Online Security

Software such as BullGuard Online Security are very important to keep a clean and safe internet environment.

This software is very useful and prevents viruses and malware from attacking your computer while you are online.

BullGuard Online Security Uses a few different features to keep you safe while you surf the web.

It uses anti-malware technology to scan the website you are on and detects and anomalies. It can be used as a parental control where you can block certain sites to stop your kids from accessing them. It also has a very powerful firewall that protects from any intruders or malware trying to attack. These are a few of the many features that BullGuard Online Security offers.

Having this layer of protection is vital to your online experience.

To celebrate online safety day, you get BullGuard Online Security free with any purchase on our website.

4.Clickbait

In the current advertisement era of internet, clickbait is a major issue. Web site content creators will use any method possible to get users to their website by using clickbait. Impressive titles and interesting pictures may entice you to click on a link to a website or on an ad.

While this may seem like an innocent way of getting page views, people on the internet lie, and what you click on may not always end up being what you want, and the pages can contain malware or other security issues.

A good way to combat this is only clicking on links of sites that you know. Also just learning to notice a legitimate link can help you out.

Clickbait effects everyone daily but with applying some caution while clicking on these links, you will be able to avoid any security issues.

5.Scams

Scams have been around hundreds of years before the internet, but they have translated very well to the internet. 

Scams on the web can come in many shapes and sizes. We have all received an email from a prince from a foreign land offering to give millions for no apparent reason.

Another scam usually showing as an ad on some lesser known websites will appear to offer you products for free, such as phones and tablets. These usually will lead to the user entering their account details or something to that effect.

These scams while sounding stupid cause a lot of people to give their bank account details and other details over to these scammers.  

Preventing scams appearing is difficult as these people use multiple ways to get to you. Putting an scam emails you get into your email spam folder should hopefully prevent you from receiving the emails into your inbox in the future.

As with Clickbait, experience of dealing with scams will prevent you from getting into trouble. Usually on the internet, if it seems too good to be true, it usually is.

Hopefully if you apply some of these techniques for internet security, your internet experience will be safe and enjoyable.

Millions of people have issues with internet security every day and hopefully after reading this article you won’t be one of them.

Cheers, Gavin

For more information: Contact [email protected] or Call 1890 815 699

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