Nowadays, imagining a day without internet has become hard, let alone not having a smartphone. Using the internet, we engage with other people, learn things, manage financial life, buy and sell almost everything in different ways.
And the internet gives us a lot of flexibility. Booking a cab in the middle of the night is as comfortable as few clicks. We no longer need to stand in long queues to get tickets to a movie show, to pay electricity bills, and to buy travel tickets like in the old days. As the days pass by, the internet has become a necessity for us.
Now the responsibility is on us to use internet with an emphasis on security. If your net banking is compromised, the financial life will take a whack. Yes, there are insurances in place to recover. However, we all know how goodinsurances work in favorof you. And most of the banks does not, by default, cover or protect debit cards from fraud.
Like the old saying better safe than sorry it’s time to learn and improve internet security whenever we are doing something online.
Use Super Strong Passwords
Most of the websites or applications ask you to set a password with minimum eight characters with at least a numeral, an uppercase letter, a lowercase letter, and symbol.
You know what? That practice is not as good as it sounds. Use passwords with a length of at least 15 characters. And you should not use the same password for more than one site or service.
You may ask, “How do I remember all these passwords?”
A straightforward solution is to use a password manager solution like Encryptr or GNOME Keyring. A password manager stores all of your passwords encrypted. And you have to set a secure master password. This password will be used to encrypt and decrypt all your passwords. This way, even if the servers of the password manager are hacked, you will not run into trouble.
Only Access Online Secured Sites
Whenever visiting a website, ensure that a green padlock is displayed, which is typically accompanied by an URL starting with HTTPS.And this is utmost important if you are using any personal information, login credentials, or purchasing something. Even if you’re not entering any sensitive information, using only a secured website is highly recommended. Google Chrome browser also tells you that a site is not secure if it is not using HTTPS protocol.
There is a free browser plugin called HTTPS Everywhere. It forces every URL you visit to be an HTTPS link.
Do Not Open or Interact with Spam Emails
Spam emails not only clutter your inbox but they can harm your computer or smartphone and eventually compromises your internet security. These Spam emails contain HTML, and sometimes, come with an embedded browser cookie to keep track of you. This causes a threat to your privacy. And these spam mailers might target you on your weaknesses.
So, as soon as you think its a spam email, delete it without opening.
Use Two-Step Authentication
Two-step authentication adds one more layer of security for your password based logins. Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and services like Gmail, PayPal,and Outlook webmail, all have two-step authentication feature.
After you enter your password, as a second step to authenticate, usually you will receive a text message that contains a temporary one-time password. Sometimes, instead of receiving a message, you will have to setup an app like Google Authenticator or Authy that generates the one-time unique password for you on demand.
That way even if your password is compromised, a hacker cannot access your account without the access to second-layer of authentication.
Use an Antivirus Software
Blackhat hackers—the guys with the utmost evil intentions—are trying to find new ways to intrude into a person’s computer. Hackers create viruses, trojan horses, malware, ransomware, and spyware to get access to the computer without your knowledge.
An antivirus will detect these dangers and will protect you from them. Also, these antivirus programs are updated regularly so that any new type of malware or something like that cannot infect your computer.
Use a VPN
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) tunnels your web traffic securely to a server located elsewhere and then sends the traffic to the internet. A VPN is also used to access resources that are not open to the internet.
Simply put, when a VPN is used, if you hit google.com, the request instead of directly reaching Google’s servers, first it will reach a VPN server. Then, from the VPN server, the request reaches to the Google’s servers. This way Google cannot identify your public IP address, which is used to know your physical location. Another good option to gain anonymity is using a free Web Proxy, you can read more here.
The Essence of SSL for Ecommerce
Build Trust Improve Conversion
Nowadays everyone is buying online to get product from their favorite ecommerce store. E-commerce is where users regularly do transactions. And do so, customer needs to share their details with the website like credit card number, CVV, email address, and password. An SSL Certificate is a protocol that secures all the information that shared with the site through the browser by a user. In case of ecommerce purchase, the customer must always look for HTTPS enable website, which obtained through security certificate.
Ecommerce owner must make their website; HTTPS enables to protect their client precious information. You can find many CAs (Certificate Authority) offering an SSL/TLS certificate in reseller portals. One of the most popular is Thawte SSL Certificate that secure customer data, their security certificate product use 256-bit encryption and 2048-bit key length to encrypt data. SSL enables the green padlock icon and displays “Secure” word in browser address bar, which customer trust.
Conclusion
Using the internet without proper security is a privacy suicide. Moreover, if your email accounts, banks accounts, or credit cards are compromised, it is going to be a nightmare. You can, however, protect yourself by using all the techniques and recommendations we have suggested to you.