Staying Safe Online: Strategies for Digital Security
The purpose of this how do you keep yourself safe and secure online essay is to enlighten the reader about how to keep your information as secure as possible on the Internet. Today, when the use of technology is part of our everyday life, young people's awareness on how to act in the virtual world to avoid potential dangers is becoming increasingly important. Especially now, during an ongoing global pandemic, where most educational institutions are closed and lessons take place online on different platforms. Even though it can feel like you are untouchable on the Internet, we never know who is tracking us or using your private information for their own benefit. So how can we keep our information as secure as possible?
Passwords are never safe, but a good one can prevent others from accessing your Internet application accounts and stealing your private information, perhaps even your credit card details. Federal Trade Commission released that last year over 1.38 million identity thefts were reported in the United States. This was twice the amount of identity theft compared to 2019, where only 650 thousand cases were reported. To prevent criminals from getting their hands on your identity you should always use a strong password or up-to-date security software. A strong password consists of a combination of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters. It is also highly recommended that a password should be at least 12 or, even better, more characters long. With a strong password you are one step closer to keeping your information safe.
Nowadays, a lot of websites use “cookies” to store data on your computer when you visit that specific site. Those “cookies” may include information about when you last visited that website, which is your username, and if you should be logged in automatically or not. While it can be quite convenient to keep your “cookies” so you don’t have to always enter your username and password on a website, it can still be harmful. For example cyber attacks have demonstrated that when hackers get their hands on those “cookies”, they can gain access to your personal data and steal it. To prevent this from happening you can always use adblockers where you can enable to block “cookies” or disable cookies on your computer’s in the Internet browser’s settings.
Companies like Google collect your information such as gender, age, location in order to make the ads you see as personal as possible. The same applies for many other online environments, and while we don’t usually read the privacy policies that appear when you sign up to a website, then it certainly wouldn’t hurt the user to know what information is collected about us and with whom it is shared. It is also recommended to occasionally delete your web history and if you no longer use your social media or mailbox, it is recommended that you sign out of those. Though if that is not enough for you, using a special browser to access the Internet, which doesn’t disclose your location or browsing history may solve this problem.
In conclusion, even if we have the feeling of being safe on the Internet, because we can’t see the real dangers with our own eyes, we are never safe. Using the different methods I mentioned above could help you to prevent others from accessing your private information and perhaps have a better, more enjoyable experience over the Internet.
