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Unprecedented levels of online browsing activity are taking place, what with a sudden and dramatic shift to remote work, study, medical consultations, entertainment, and communication taking place. Global servers are being pushed to their limits, expanding capacity to accommodate burgeoning numbers of users. These shifts in demand are pressuring online server networks, platforms, and applications in ways never before seen. However, with added capacity comes added risk.
As Internet users entrust more of their sensitive personal information to cloud-based servers, apps, and companies, there is always the risk of sensitive personal information being intercepted by bad actors. In an interconnected world of 1’s and 0’s where the IoT (Internet of Things) faces challenges at every turn, there are highly effective ways to beef up the safety and security of your browsing sessions to prevent fraud, hacking, and corruption of users’ sensitive information.
Tip #1 – Secure Passwords
Secure your browsing sessions by adopting a diligent approach to password management. One of the primary sources of entry into a user’s personal information is via unprotected username/password combinations. Studies indicate that a substantial number of users (83% of Americans according to a recent study by Avast) do not follow the recommendations of creating secure passwords comprised of 10-character combinations using uppercase, lowercase, symbols, and special characters.
Further, passwords should not be related to easily-identifiable information such as names and birthdays. It is strongly recommended that password generators (RNGs) are used to ‘randomize’ passwords to bank-level security status. The more difficult a password is to ‘guess’ or ‘determine’ the stronger it is. On a similar note, it is advised that different passwords are used for different websites, and that passwords are regularly changed to keep logins as secure as possible.
Tip #2 – Web of Trust
The ‘Web of Trust’ is precisely as its namesake suggests – it’s a ‘safe circle’ of online websites. With MyWOT, users continually evaluate the credibility of websites they frequent in the Web of Trust, allowing other users to browse the Internet with complete confidence. The WOT (Web of Trust) is a crowd-based system which has already evaluated the credibility of 90 million websites. Since there are more than 1.3 billion websites in operation, and 500K new websites being created daily, the world wide web is a hive of activity. In and among the legitimate operators are many scam artists whose sole objective is to infiltrate a user’s personal information for nefarious purposes.
The Web of Trust is a bulwark against such malicious advances. MyWOT a.k.a. My Web of Trust has deep roots in the global internet user-base with 140 million people assessing the credibility of websites. The MyWOT is an app and it’s also available as an extension. Users simply provide reviews of websites on a 5-star ratings scale. On average, some 150K reviews are written monthly and these are shared with the MyWOT community of users to provide a comprehensive analyse of websites. This information is aggregated and an overall assessment of the website is provided. Any site with a 3-star rating or above can be considered safe; that’s the benefit of the user-generated Web of Trust.
Tip #3 – VPNs for Masking IPs
One of the biggest challenges for all online communications is how best to maintain the integrity of a user’s sensitive, personal information. One of these elements is a user’s IP address. The IP address is unique to every single Internet user, even those using the same Internet provider. If a hacker gains access to an IP address, valuable meta-data can be intercepted. Further, IP transparency serves as a serious privacy concern with Big Brother, and Internet Service Providers watching. Since Internet users are increasingly skeptical of who is monitoring their activity, the only logical conclusion is a masking program that ‘hides’ your true IP address from everyone else on the web.
The most commonly used tools for protecting the sanctity of IP addresses is a VPN. The venerable Virtual Private Network (VPN) works by rerouting a user’s Internet traffic through a third-party IP address via the VPN network. These IP addresses are the only IP addresses that are seen by anyone else on the web (except for the VPN network itself). It is impossible for anyone to hack someone using a secure VPN since the VPNs servers serve as the conduits for traffic flow, not the user’s personal ISP or IP address.
While a VPN is useful, it is also fraught with challenges since many of these companies are licensed in dodgy locales, with questionable ownership, privacy policies, et al. It is imperative to carefully assess the legitimacy and credibility of VPN providers to prevent these networks from sharing your data with third parties, or from monitoring and sharing your web traffic with the authorities. Other options like Tor (The Onion Router) browser are also available and this bounces your IP to many different nodes all over the web preventing your IP from being seen by the target source. However, both VPNs and Tor can significantly slow down traffic.
Tip #4 – AV (Antivirus Software)
No Internet user should be exposed to the perils of the Internet. To this end, it is absolutely imperative that antivirus software is used to protect against Adware, Malware, Phishing, Pharming, spoofing, Viruses, and Trojans, et al. The best AV programs can offer protection against a huge number of online threats and these companies regularly update their databases of ‘immunizing software’ to guard against these malicious activities. It is vital that users run the latest version of Antivirus software. Only ranking providers of Antivirus software should be considered, since these companies typically protect against the latest threats and they are able to provide updates as new malware hits the scene.
Tip #5 – Secure Your Browser
Without a browser, there is no way to surf the net. The browser is the user-interface between the world wide web and the user on the other end. Browsers include Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Safari, among others. These browsers routinely need updating, extensions, and add-ons to be tweaked for maximum safety and security. Passwords stored on browsers are particularly vulnerable to attack. These should always be safeguarded with additional passwords to prevent any unauthorized access via third parties. Browser patches, version updates, or recommendations should always be implemented. In fact, most hacks that take place are via weaknesses in software before updates have been downloaded and installed.
