The digitalized environment for almost all types of companies has created a world where having a website and providing services on those platforms are business essential. For the customers, this means that most of the time their purchases, gaming, and other activities take place on different websites, and it’s important to notice that not all of them are secure.
It’s imperative that we learn how to keep ourselves protected digitally. It’s not something that gets taught often enough, and yet, there are so many cases where cybercrime could have been prevented. This post walks you through the best digital safety tips. By the end, you’ll have a much better idea of how to keep yourself online.
Cryptocurrencies Can Be Considered for Their Built-In Safety
Crypto is a popular way to keep yourself safe whilst online. This is due to how transactions are more secure, not to mention, that people have been appreciating how crypto withdrawals are both faster and secure! As a result, it’s a much more open way to see information which makes it more difficult for cybercriminals to succeed.
This is especially useful for online gaming on crypto casino platforms, where players often deposit and withdraw funds. It’s becoming more common for online casinos to use crypto as a payment form, which has caused transfers to be both more secure and faster.
It’s common for people to use Bitcoin when playing online due to how the fees are so low and the transfer speeds are remarkably fast. Being able to receive your funds faster, more securely, and with fewer fees is an all-round win.
You can also be assured that your personal info is safe whilst transferring funds. Furthermore, crypto enables people from all over the globe to play and withdraw their earnings, regardless of their country and currency. This is a major benefit for people in countries who struggled to withdraw funds or had to pay high currency conversion fees to access their winnings.
Use Multi-Factor Authentication
Multi-factor authentication is a great option if the info within an account is highly personal or sensitive. This works by providing you with several layers of protection in the form of questions and/or face ID.
As a result, you can be sure that you’ll be the only person with access to the account. Someone else will have a very tricky time trying to access an account with so many layers of authentication.
Naturally, the password is something you know. Something you are could imply fingerprint or face recognition. Something you have is your mobile phone; you may be asked to enter a text-messaged code or to hit a confirmation button on a mobile app.
If you only use a password for authentication, anyone who discovers it owns your account; with multi-factor authentication enabled, the password alone is rendered useless.
Always Validate Links
Around 36% of data breaches involve phishing. Phishing is an attempt to trick you into exposing important personal or financial information, such as a password or bank account information, and can take numerous forms. This includes phony login pages or text messages claiming to be from a relative or close friend.
Avoiding suspicious links is the simplest way to protect yourself from phishing scams. It’s also good practice to validate the source.
One common phishing scam comes from people pretending to be your bank. One of the telltale signs that it’s not your bank contacting you is that they ask for personal information via email.
This is something that your real bank will never ask for. Not sure whether it’s your real bank or a scam? You can simply call your bank and verify that they emailed you and that they’re asking for the info in the email. If not, then you know it’s a scam.
It’s also worth checking the URL of a website that you’re using. You can do this by hovering over the link or long pressing the text on mobile to ensure that the website or app is real and that the URL begins with ‘https’.
Search engines like Google often have built-in security systems in place that automatically validate URLs and links and inform you if it’s insecure or dangerous.
Get A VPN
There are numerous advantages of using a VPN for anyone seeking a safer, more liberated, and secure online experience. Encrypting your data and routing it through a VPN server makes identifying you and tracking your online movements more difficult; while VPNs cannot provide perfect anonymity, they can increase your privacy. A VPN will conceal the contents of your web activity from some observers and may make it more difficult to trace you online.
Work emails, financial information, and location tagging are all constantly transmitted online. This information is easily trackable and exploitable, especially on a public network, where anyone with network access has the capacity to access your personal data. A VPN connection scrambles your data into code, making it unintelligible to anyone who does not have an encryption key. In short, it conceals your browsing activities, so no one else can see it.
Also read: The Intersection of Cloud Computing and AI
Conclusion
From cryptocurrencies for safer transactions to validating links, there are several things you can do to create a more secure online journey. By following the tips above, you can significantly reduce the risk of phishing scams and cybercriminals accessing your data.