How To Protect Yourself Against Cybercriminals
October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, a good time to protect your personal data and stay safe online.
Cybercrime is regarded as one of the most common threats in the digital world. It involves stealing sensitive data, personal information, and digital assets, including money.
88% of these attacks are scams and brand impersonation. Statistics show that every second, 12 people are the victims of a cyberattack, and that every day, 30,000 websites are compromised, with mobile devices being the most vulnerable.
No matter where you are working — at home, at the office, at school, or even on a public Wi-Fi network (please avoid this as much as possible) — you need to be safe. Attackers are constantly devising new strategies for carrying out their attacks.
In this article, you’ll learn how to avoid phishing attacks, the most common type of cyberattack.
What is Phishing?
Phishing is the act of luring Internet users into divulging personal or confidential information.
It happens when an attacker deceives a victim into opening an email, instant message, or text message by disguising themselves as a reliable source.
How to Identify and Prevent a Phishing Attack
You can use the following tips to protect your personal data and stay safe while surfing the internet:
- Learn to identify parts of a URL to protect yourself from fake URL phishing attacks.
Fake URLs are frequently used in phishing attacks to trick you into thinking you are on a different website than you actually are. A URL is made up of four parts namely protocol(http://), domain(phishing.com), directories(/folder/) and a page(example.html).
You need to pay attention to the domain part of the URL. Keep an eye out for malicious names and spellings. For instance, the URLs http://www.bank.com and http://wwwbank.com have two different domains. Can you tell the difference?
2. Let your friends know of any suspicious activity on their email accounts.
Hackers may transmit viruses, spyware, or phishing attempts using another person’s email address; a friend, colleague or business partner. You want to delete any strange emails you get from friends/coworkers and notify them about it immediately. Resetting their email password might solve the issue quickly.
3. Sometimes phishing emails masquerade to be inquiries from reputed companies.
In such a situation, contact the sender immediately if an email appears to be a scam before clicking any links or downloading any attachments.
Rather than clicking a link in an email, visit the company’s official website directly. You want to always verify email addresses before clicking a link or downloading any attachments.
4. Before responding to any emails demanding personal information, make sure you verify the sender’s identity.
By getting in touch with the alleged sender of the email to verify that this company truly sent the message, you can avoid phishing scams. Financial organizations that are legitimate will never send you an email asking for authorization credentials or private information from you. It’s best to delete these types of messages without clicking on them. You should also report the phishing attempt so it can be investigated.
5. Look for signs that you’ve received a suspicious email.
There are frequently red flags, even though these emails can be highly deceiving. Phishing emails frequently include a warning of some kind, such as an account suspension. This notice will ask you to visit a link and enter your personal information or your login credentials in a form. When in doubt, avoid replying to the email in any way and instead immediately contact the business that the phishing email claims to be from.
6. Phishing attacks might be sparked by fake online relationships.
Do not exchange personal information online. No matter how genuine someone seems, you should never divulge sensitive information to them. Many phishing attacks use phony online dating platforms. The person in question can start by inquiring informally about your children, birthplace, or high school. The responses to these inquiries might be exploited to steal your identity. When setting up meetings with someone you meet online, exercise caution.
7. Avoid donation scams.
Donation scams frequently make use of your empathy for sick or disaster victims to try and get money or personal information. Use online tools to check the legitimacy of a charity if you receive an email from someone who claims to represent it. Instead of clicking a link in the email message, visit the charity’s official website to make a donation. Donate money directly to the charity rather than depending on a third party to do it on your behalf.
8. Flag unwanted emails as spam to ensure future emails are sorted correctly in the future.
You can flag unwanted and suspicious emails as spam, this will enable your email application to identify and categorize similar emails in the future as spam.
9. Hover over Links to see their actual destination.
Do not click the link, instead, you can hover your mouse cursor over a link to view the website’s exact address, You shouldn’t click on the link if the address differs in any way from what you expected. To check where the link leads, you can alternatively right-click the link, copy it, and then paste it into a text file.
10. Use strong passwords and enable Two-factor authentication.
Your passwords must be unique, private, and simple to remember for you yet difficult for an attacker to decipher. Whenever possible, you should utilize multi-factor authentication (MFA) in addition to a strong password because it makes it more difficult for an attacker to compromise an account by bypassing only one authentication method (a password plus biometrics, a PIN number, etc.).
Loss of personal information can be devastating, but you can prevent yourself from such situations by adopting the tips above.
You can also help others protect themselves by sharing this article. #staysafeonline #cybersecurity
