Unfortunately, complete safety on the Internet (as in real life) is difficult to achieve. Part of the responsibility for making the Internet safe lies with each of us. You, personally, can make your Internet safer, and you don’t need Big Decisions or drastic measures to do it. A few simple habits will suffice.
- Love updates.
Turn on automatic updates in all the applications you use on a daily basis. First and foremost is the operating system, web browser, email and messaging clients. Also the PDF viewer, Flash and Java playback. It should be done only once, it will take three minutes and your computer will be much safer from all kinds of viruses and other malicious applications. - Observe the rules of online hygiene
In the same way that you should not eat without washing your hands, you should not use a “dirty” computer. If we are talking about your own machine, among the first programs installed on it should be a reliable, up-to-date antivirus. Better yet, a comprehensive protection class Internet Security. When you have to work on someone else’s computer, it is a good idea to check in the beginning, whether it works with antivirus, when the virus database was released and when the last check ran. If it’s been a while, take five minutes to scan it before you enter your valuable work, online banking and social networking passwords. What if the keylogger sends them to intruders right away? - Your smartphone is also a computer.
Repeat this more often. The important thing is not the recognition of your smartphone as a computer, but your understanding that there are programs running on it, and some of them are malicious. Therefore, all protective measures – updates, antivirus, banning the installation of questionable programs – are just as relevant on the smartphone as they are on the computer. The advantage of comprehensive smartphone protection is also that it protects not only from viruses, but also from spam and phishing links, and also helps find a lost or stolen smartphone. - dangerous links
Actually, web links were invented to make life easier for the user. One touch and you’re on the right site. Alas, this is brilliantly used by villains, luring gullible users to sites that distribute malicious software or extort payment data. Conclusion – do not train your eyesight trying to distinguish a “good” link from a bad one. If you receive a link in your mail, social network message or SMS – don’t click it unless you asked for it to be sent to you. A simple example – the bank has sent you an important alert and suggests you read it on the site. Don’t click the link, open your browser and go to the online bank by entering the website address manually.
The second most important type of dangerous links are disturbing, provocative and enticing banners. Iron rule: pictures and banners on websites with the messages “your computer is infected”, “update your player”, “you won a prize”, “speed up your computer” and other things like that are probably fraudulent, and you should not click on them.
- Get a password manager
You will quickly get tired of trying to remember passwords to dozens of sites that require registration. And you’ll end up using the same password everywhere. By the way, the most popular password of last year was “123456”. In order to prevent your compromised account from adding to your sad online stats, get yourself an application that creates passwords for different sites, “fakes” them into your browser, and stores the passwords in an encrypted database. And you really only need to remember one password – to that database. By the way, we do not recommend the standard “password keeper” from the browser for this role – in half of popular browsers all saved passwords are easy to read without any technical tricks. - Learn to complain
Almost every social network or chat room has a “Block User” button.
Internet threats are not only viruses and scammers. Rude, provocative, network “trolls” are no less pleasant. Children and teenagers have it especially hard, they often do not know how to resist verbal attacks effectively, or pass by quietly. It is not at all necessary to get into personalities and remember who recognized whose mother in what circumstances. Almost every social network, forum or chat room has a “Block User” button, as well as “Report Spam” and “Report Abuse” buttons. They should be used without unnecessary hesitation – the first thing we do is complain about an offensive comment. - Talk to your kids. And parents.
All of the above rules are simple, but they are often not obvious to the most inexperienced users of the Web – children and the elderly. Therefore all of the above should be retold to them many times. In addition to the rules of “computer hygiene”, which help protect against malicious applications and fraud, it is a good idea to instill in them the idea that the Internet is very often written with lies. As a rule, not out of malice, but out of ignorance, but this does not change the matter – the information should be carefully checked.