More and more people have fallen and continue to fall victims of hacking. Hackers are people who secretly gets access to your computer or smart phone to steal information. Most of the time valuable personal/secret information are stolen by these hackers. Like your credit card details and other financial accounts online.
They usually steal huge amounts of money from these accounts causing financial loss to the victims.
Other times too, hackers don't go after your financial details, they just hunt for a private photo or video of yourself. Pictures you will never post online. Celebrities are mostly the targets of these type of hacking. They wake up to see private and mostly explicit photos of themselves online and seen by everybody.
That wouldn't go down well with every body as it tarnish one's image/personality.
Nobody will ever want to be hacked, not at all. But we make ourselfs too prone to hacking. Everybody wants to be social; make new friends and post photos to be liked by everybody and bla bla bla. But not to the extent of sharing everything of ours' online. When people know much more about you, it's very easy for them to blackmail you.
- Read Also: How To Protect Yourself From Cyber Crime.
We can't stop the activities of hackers, but we can prevent them. As an African proverb goes
Prevention is better than curewe should not wait till we are hacked before we find a way to stop it. We should make some adjustments in the way we conduct ourselves both online and offline. In doing so, let's look at How To Protect Yourself From Hackers.
Protect your device with a password:
That should be the first thing to do on your smartphone/tablet/PC. Passwords will prevent other people from having access to your device, not to even think of stealing your data. You should always use strong passwords, that is a combination of letters, numbers and symbols. If possible, you can use a password manager like Lastpass, Dashlane, RoboForm and 1password. They are all cross-platform services that work via mobile in addition to your native apps.
They generate random passwords for you and also warn you if when using same password for multiple sites, a huge security error many of us are guilty of committing.
Note: Use passwords your can remember easily. A one that no one but you know.
They generate random passwords for you and also warn you if when using same password for multiple sites, a huge security error many of us are guilty of committing.
Note: Use passwords your can remember easily. A one that no one but you know.
Do not link accounts:
Sometimes when signing up/registering to a particular website, they give you an option to register with your facebook/twitter/gmail accounts. Doing so means that you have given them full access to your facebook/twitter/gmail accounts.
You should always use different passwords for different websites. Also, frequently review those apps connected to your facebook/twitter accounts and remove the ones you no longer use.
You should always use different passwords for different websites. Also, frequently review those apps connected to your facebook/twitter accounts and remove the ones you no longer use.
Do not store sensitive data online:
Do not backup your phone or store much needed documents online. Online storage services like Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox among others often some amount of space to store some of your documents on their disks which you can have access to at anytime and anywhere.
There are millions of websites equipped with malwares online. They can compromise your PC and give hackers access to your data. Try keeping valuable data away from the internet and keep them password protected.
There are millions of websites equipped with malwares online. They can compromise your PC and give hackers access to your data. Try keeping valuable data away from the internet and keep them password protected.
- Read Also: 5 Bad Effects Of Using Mobile Phones.
Enable log-in alerts:
Log-in alerts acts as checkpoints when someone tries to log-in to your account. It takes the form of a text message or an E-mail which is sent to you when someone wants to access your account event if the person has your password.
Facebook for instance sends Me an e-mail notification whenever I log into my account even on my own PC or phone. They e-mail Me the details of the log-in: the name of the browser, system and device type, location and time and ask if I it was Me. I'ts been set up for extra security.
Facebook for instance sends Me an e-mail notification whenever I log into my account even on my own PC or phone. They e-mail Me the details of the log-in: the name of the browser, system and device type, location and time and ask if I it was Me. I'ts been set up for extra security.
Security questions:
Security questions like "What game do you like best" are easy to answer by someone who knows how to use google very well since we share most of our info online. When you are asked these questions, always reply with answers that sum up to cos90 ( a little math there). Give answers that makes no sense in context. For example "Whats your best friends name?", I reply "Lion"
Always make sure it's something that has nothing to do with the question.
Always make sure it's something that has nothing to do with the question.
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