There are a variety of ways to protect yourself while surfing or shopping online. This article will teach you the easiest ways to keep your information private and how to prevent downloading malicious content or viruses.
Stay up to date
The first way to prevent malicious malware or viruses is to make sure that the browser you are using is updated. This is true for your email programs as well. Hackers are continuously searching for ways to exploit these types of programs. Fortunately, the developers of your browsers are also working to stay ahead of the hacks. Whenever any part of the browser or email software may become compromised, the developers work diligently to fix the vulnerability and will offer updates. Keep your browsers and email programs updated regularly as your first line of defense.
You can also take this another step further by updating your browser’s plugins and by adjusting its security settings. Plugins are extra pieces of software written by separate developers to add extra features to your browser. They may be called plugins, add-ons or even extensions. Again, the developers of the plugins are constantly updating their software to keep you safe. Make sure that you regularly check for updates if you are using any type of browser extensions. You can learn more about each browser and how to change these settings by visiting the links below.
Know what you are clicking on
The second lesson in safe browsing is to avoid clicking on malicious links. If you know the URL or web address to the site that you want to visit, make sure that you type the name properly into the search bar. Many hackers can expose you to harmful content by relying on your misspellings. You may not even be aware that the site is fraudulent because they can do very well in disguising it as the website that you originally intended to visit.
If you are using a search engine to find websites of interest, be sure to avoid clicking on any advertisements or sponsored links, as they are often a way to gather your personal information or worse. Many times, the advertisements that you see at the top of these search engines may not even send you to the site that they’ve shown. You may think that you’ve clicked on a certain website, just to find out that it was a bad link or the website appears to not be working properly. These links can also lead to viruses and other harmful things. Anyone can purchase these ads, and put any information into them that they want. Unfortunately, most search engines and even websites will sell these ads and place them at the very top of your search results. Read the entire link and its description before clicking on anything. Paid advertisements will typically be labeled as “Sponsored” or “Ad” and its best to avoid these links at all costs.
SSL and HTTPS
You may notice that some websites will show http:// at the beginning of their web address while others display https:// at the beginning.
Think of the extra S as meaning Secure. This means that the current website has a security certificate that has been verified to keep any information that you put into it safe. This is important to note if you are signing up with your name and other personal info, but even more important if you are shopping online and plan to input your credit card or any other type of account number. Always look for that extra S.
Most browsers will also display a closed lock at the beginning of the web address as shown below:
You can usually click on the lock itself to view information about the security certificate and to see what company has verified it. You can also set up your browser to warn you when visiting websites that do not have this safety feature though many browsers will have this warning enabled as a default. Again, if you are going to input anything into a website form, make sure that the website is secure.
Logins and Passwords
We all have a ton of passwords for just about everything these days and it is far to easy to choose words or phrases that are easier to remember. Hackers use software that can literally scan through these words and phrases in a very short amount of time. As much as you probably don’t want to hear this, it is much safer to use a long string of random numbers, letters and special characters to ensure your account safety. There are a variety of sites that offer services to store your many different random passwords securely, however I recommend finding an old small USB drive and adding a text file to it. Keep this USB as your own little password key and use it when you need it. Anytime you create a new password, you can choose the most random of variations, and simply copy it to the text file on your USB key. Now you can use this file to copy and paste your random password easily without having to memorize anything. Put this on your keyring and you will always have all of your passwords available on any computer that you happen to use.
Cookies and Privacy
You may have seen websites with a pop-up message telling you that their site requires you to have cookies enabled. This means that the website will store small text files on your computer that lets the website remember certain things about you or what you did while visiting their site. For example, they may make the pages that you’re on load a little faster for you the next time you visit, or they may use your browsing habit to place advertisements in front of you based on what you’ve looked at so far. Typically cookies are fairly safe, as they are just text files and there is no malicious code that can run, but they are a way for websites to gather information about you that you may or may not be comfortable with. You can always adjust these types of options in your browsers settings.
If you have any questions or concerns about the safety of your browsing or online shopping, submit it using the form below and we will try to respond as quickly as possible.
– Ken S.