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Precautions to protect from social media

“Every young person one day will be entitle automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friend’s social media sites.”, predicted by Google CEO Eric Schmidt in an interview with the Wall Street Journal in 2010.

webdesign TorontoWe will be surprised to see how much personal information we are posting online and giving details of our personal life on internet. In fact, if we see the social media sites like Face book, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr Photos, LinkedIn and etc, they give all the information about us of who our friends & family are, what are our interests, our relationship status, our professional history, the past and present history of ours, etc., . The photos we are tagged in the social media reveal of what we’ve done, where we were, our favourite vacation spots, etc.  One can access all this digital data information in just one search of our name.

If we need to know about any one, just Google search their name and we will be able to get details of all their social network sites and connections by revealing their personal history. Chances are there that all this digital data can be taken out and could be used to cause problems in our personal day to day life, problems at the time of prospective marriage alliances, could be investigated by potential employers, mined by marketing firms, or even be used by cyber criminals for identity theft.

But, if we take precautions by few quick things, we can protect ourselves from the chaos.

 Manage all your accounts

Find out all your social network sites, online services and smart phone apps –  where you have your accounts.  You can Google your full name, nick names and e-mail addresses to find out the forgotten accounts.  Close the accounts and unsubscribe yourself from the services that are no longer in use. Try website like http://accountkiller.com/en/, http://deleteyouraccount.com/,  and http://justdelete.me/ to delete your accounts and how-to’s.

For the social networks you are using, make sure that your posts and photos are not freely available to the public by changing the settings to private. Do not allow anyone to tag you in the photos. Share your photos only to your close friends. And always be cautious when you share your posts, photos or tweets.

 Avoid being tracked

Every time you  surf the web – even in the privacy of your home, your actions are constantly being tracked. When you are signed-in to your Google, Microsoft or face book, your searches are monitored by Google search and Bing to give tailor-made results. When the shopping websites are being surfed, they leave cookies on your system which are used to provide advertisements in your browsing.

Sign out from all your accounts before browsing websites or using search engines. Uninstall search tool bars that might have been installed. Check the extensions that the browser is running (see browser Help section to know more about extensions),  and disable the ones that you don’t recognize. Try https://duckduckgo.com/ search engine that doesn’t track you. Install the DoNotTrackMe browser add-on (http://abine.com/index.html) that’s available for Chrome, Firefox, IE, Opera and Safari and also as an app for Android and iOS. This add-on blocks ad networks, social networks and data-collection companies from tracking your browsing. It also protects email address, phone and credit card from being used by companies on the web and on your mobile devices. Install the CCleaner from http://www.piriform.com/ to clear temporary files, cookies, browsing, download and form history to protect privacy and to make computer faster and secure.

Useful browser extensions

Disconnect: Blocks trackers from popular sites (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari) HTTPS
Everywhere: Redirects to secure (HTTPS) versions of the sites where possible (Chrome, Firefox)
Adblock Plus: Blocks intrusive ads (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari)

Sources: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/

12 Quick Internet Safety Tips That Will Save Your Digital Life From Getting Hacked

In 2014, the hackers are becoming more of a threat than ever before. Within the past two months companies such as Microsoft, AOL, and eBay have been the victim of security breaches.

And also the Heartbleed bug — a giant vulnerability that was discovered within an encryption protocol that guards a massive chunk of the internet.

Here are some tips to help prevent your digital life from being stolen, whether it be a password breach or an internet-wide vulnerability.

Make sure you’ve got a superstrong, unique password. In other words, ensure that your password is difficult to guess. One way to come up with a creative password is to brainstorm a random sentence. Take the first letter of each word in that sentence and use that acronym as the base for your password.

Don’t use the same password for multiple services. Using the same term for all of your passwords leaves your entire digital life vulnerable to attack. This means that if a hacker has one password, he or she has all of your passwords.

Enable two-factor authentication. Many services, including Google, offer two-factor authentication for logging into your account. Instead of simply entering a username and password to log in, the website will prompt you to enter a code sent to your smartphone to verify your identity.

Apply software updates when necessary. Apple, Google, and Microsoft typically include security bug fixes and patches in their most recent software updates. So don’t ignore those annoying prompts and keep your software up-to-date.

Carefully read the permissions before installing apps. This is one of the most prominent ways in which malicious apps can gain access to your personal information. These types of issues have been especially present in the Google Play store. A lot of apps ask for a lengthy list of permissions, and that doesn’t mean they’re all ill-intentioned. But it’s important to be aware of the types of information your apps are accessing, which can include your contacts, location, and even your phone’s camera.

Check the app publisher before installing. There have been numerous instances in which scammers have published apps in the Google Play store posing as another popular app. For example, in late 2012 an illegitimate developer posted an imposter app in Google Play pretending to be “Temple Run.” A quick look at the publisher shows that the app comes from a developer named “apkdeveloper,” not the game’s true publisher Imangi Studios.

Avoid inserting hard drives and thumbdrives you don’t trust into your computer. If you find a random USB stick, don’t let your curiosity tempt you to plug it in. Someone could have loaded malware onto it hoping that an interested person was careless enough to insert it into their device. If you don’t trust the source, you’re better off not putting your computer at risk.

Make sure a website is secure before you enter personal information. Look for the little padlock symbol in front of the web address in the URL bar. Also, make sure the web address starts with the prefix https://. If these things aren’t there, then the network isn’t secure and you shouldn’t enter any data you wouldn’t want made public.

Don’t send personal data via email. Sending critical information such as credit card numbers or bank account numbers puts it at risk of being intercepted by hackers or cyber attacks.

Keep an eye out for phishing scams. A phishing scam is an email or website that’s designed to steal from you. Often times, a hacker will use this email or website to install malicious software onto your computer. These web entities are designed to look like a normal email or website, which is how hackers convince their victims to hand over personal information. Phishing scams are typically easy to spot, but you should know what to look out for. Many of these emails contain spell errors and are written in poor grammar.

Avoid logging into your important accounts on public computers. Sometimes you’ve got no choice but to use a computer at the coffee shop, library, or local FedEx. But try not to do it frequently, and make sure you completely wipe the browser’s history when you’re finished.

Back up your personal files to avoid losing them. You should keep a copy of all important files in the cloud and on some sort of hard drive. If one of them gets hacked or damaged, you’ll still have a backup copy.

Sources: www.finance.yahoo.com