BUCKET KAILANGANG SAFE KA?

Practical Ways To Protect Your Online Privacy

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No one can deny that the internet is a necessity now. Especially now, during this COVID 19 pandemic where social interaction is highly limited, the internet is needed more than ever. Although this revolutionizing commodity has numerous benefits, it comes with an appropriately large amount of risks as well. With that said, countermeasures are available, and here are some of those.

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1. Updating your computer, phones, and apps. 

When you receive a notification to update the software on any of your devices, you should almost always do it straight away. Nearly all updates include things called security patches: they close holes in the software that make it easy for someone to hack into your software – and once they do they can often get access to everything on your phone or computer. The software can be very complex and security holes are discovered all the time, so keep an eye on those updates.

The best thing to do is to turn on automatic updates for your apps and operating system. You can do this in the settings of your app store, phone, and computer.

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2. Use strong and different passwords (keep note of them)

You’ve heard this a million times but can you remember 30 different complicated passwords? Of course not, nobody can. You still need to do it, however, as large data breaches happen all the time. If your password is stolen and you use the same one for other services, those other accounts will also be at risk.

So here are a few tips for picking passwords and making sure you don’t forget them:

A simple rule for passwords is that the more complex they are, the harder they are to crack: so mix the lower case and upper case characters and include numbers and/or symbols like “!” and “&”.

You can also use a passphrase – so your password could be “pigeons go 2 schools every day!!” or whatever else makes sense to you as long as it’s not something too common like “keep calm and carry on”.

Use a password manager: these are programs that generate strong passwords for different websites and store them. Some of them sync across computers and phones so you have them everywhere. This way you don’t have to remember all these complicated passwords.

Choose a very strong password for your primary email and remember it. Your primary email is particularly important as it’s normally used to recover your other accounts if you forget your passwords. It also means it can be used to change the passwords on your other accounts.

Also check haveibeenpwned.com, which can show you if your information was stolen in many of the large data breaches.

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3. Set up two-factor authentication

Two-factor authentication is an extra step you need to log in to your account. In most cases, it’s very simple and you only need to do it when you use a new device or once every few weeks. A very common form is a text message with a six-digit code you receive by SMS on your phone after entering your password.

This makes it much harder to access your accounts as, even if someone managed to steal your password, they would also need to have your phone to be able to log in to your account.

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4. Use HTTPS

The link in the address bar of your browser starts with either “HTTP” or “HTTPS”. The first one means that the connection between you and the website is open, i.e. anyone who taps into your internet connection can see everything you’re writing or looking at. This is bad.

Some websites have HTTPS as a default, others as an option. You can usually tell that you’re on an HTTPS site by a lock icon in the address bar; if there is a lock but it’s crossed it means there is something wrong with the encryption and your connection might not be protected. Some websites still don’t have HTTPS at all. If one of your favorite sites is one of those, you can write to them and ask what they’re waiting for.

You can also download HTTPS Everywhere, a browser extension that helps you encrypt your web browsing.

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Here are just some of the most convenient ways you can protect your online privacy. Nothing bad comes out of playing it safe so don't slack on implementing these countermeasures! All of these are free so you don't have to worry about your wallet. That's all for today and happy browser surfing!

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