How to protect your personal data on the Internet

Back in the day people were able to keep secrets. But since the advent of the digital and information age, a number of opportunities to safeguard the confidentiality of your personal affairs have diminished.

Data on your everyday activities preformed online such as chatting with friends, vacationing or shopping and much more are put and stored on the servers of various companies and organizations. And this information can be sold, stolen or utilized in the way its new owners see fit.

So it should come as no surprise that an issue of concern to many modern Internet users is the question of personal data protection. That’s why we invite you to acquaint yourself with simple tips on how protect your privacy on the web.

In this regard, it would be prudent to undertake the following measure:

1) Set up the settings of your accounts created on social networking sites.

Every social media platform is a priceless source of information for hustlers collecting your personal data that might consequently be used to commit fraud against you. For this reason, it’s critical to configure the privacy settings of your social media profile correctly.

2) Take care of your e-mail account.

As a rule, your e-mail box contains a lot of passwords to your accounts created on different websites. And this is no surprise in the view of the fact that recovering a password for access to a web resource is carried out with the help of messages sent via e-mail.

That’s why you really need to see to it that the security settings of your main e-mail account are configured properly. Moreover, if you wish to sign up for some new site of dubious reputation, you’d better create an additional e-mail account and enter your extra e-mail address into the site’s registration form so as not to flash your main address in front of unknown people.

3) Be careful when using free Wi-Fi networks.

Free Wi-Fi networks may look like credible Internet hotspots provided by a local café or library. However, it’s quite difficult to tell the difference between decent Wi-Fi networks and malevolent ones. In order to create a malicious Wi-Fi hotspot, a fraudster will need just a laptop and a Wi-Fi adapter to start sharing an Internet connection, and con artists do use this method to intercept the logins and passwords of users who try to connect to the Internet through their networks.

4) Stay clear of insecure passwords.

If your information is protected by a weak password, you might as well scream it to a megaphone in the middle of a shopping mall that is chock-full of people, since simple passwords normally fail to protect your personal data.

That’s why you should consider setting up long, complex and unique passwords to all of your Internet accounts. Surely, it’s hard to keep all passwords to numerous websites in your head, but that’s no problem, because password managers can come to your rescue.

The password managers are computer programs designed to store logins and passwords to your user accounts created on various websites and ensure safe logging on to those web resources. Put simply, they represent secure vaults inside which log on details are hidden.

As soon as you download and install the program, you will have to remember only one combination – the one that is necessary for access to a password manager.

5) Protect yourself from Internet surveillance.

When you go to any website, your Internet browser informs it of lots of interesting stuff about you and what other sites you have already visited. With the help of this information, marketing specialists compile your personal profile in order to show you targeted advertisements afterwards. Using the Incognito mode of your Internet browser won’t save you from a personal data leak in this case – to this end, you need to utilize specialized tools.

Just google “Internet security software” to find programs aimed at protecting you from the collection of personal data on the web and hence to avoid Internet surveillance.

6) Use messengers that provide end-to-end encryption.

Most of modern messengers use such a security mechanism as encryption. However, in many of them, messages are only being encrypted when they are transmitted to the server, whereas on the server, they are stored unencrypted.

What happens if someone hacks into the server? That’s right, your personal data fall into the hands of fraudsters. In order to prevent the risk of identity theft, you should only rely on messengers that provide end-to-end encryption.

When you use such applications, you can be certain that outsiders including the application creators won’t be able to read your messages, since it’s you and your interlocutor that have cipher keys.

Please note that in some messengers such as WhatsApp, end-to-end encryption is activated by default, whereas in other applications, namely, Telegram or Facebook Messenger, you need to start a secret chat in order to enable this feature.

That’s pretty much all we wanted to tell you about how to protect your personal data on the Internet. We hope that our tips will help you to enjoy being online without fear of being place under observation or losing your private information.