Hackers don’t care if you are cute and a nice person. If you ‘offer’ them the opportunity to be inside of your precious virtual world, they won’t hesitate and they will put a serious mess in it. I spent hours to fix my emails and Facebook’s account, and sadly I lost some friends on the way. At the end of my giant headache, I promised to myself it won’t happen again, so here some useful tips that I use everyday, it’s maybe not the 100% anti-hackers system but it’s a good feeling to be a little bit in control. Here my 11 tips to prevent hackers to make your life miserable.
Tip 1 – Use Different Passwords
It’s important to use different passwords for your banking, Facebook, Twitter, Emails, cell phone and anything you are doing online or from your phone and tablet. Change your passwords regularly and make them complicated with letters and numbers.
Tip 2 – Clear Your Web Data
Go to your web browser and empty the cache, clear history, delete cookies. Try to do it everyday and don’t save your passwords into your web browser.
Tip 3 – Never Reply To A Bank Email
Banks or other Government Institutions normally do not email, if you have a doubt about an email, don’t open it, place it into junk and give a call to the institution to check. Same story if you’ve received an email announcing that your are the lucky lottery winner – don’t open it and drag it straight away to your junk inbox.
Tip 4 – Update Your Desktop Anti-Virus
Hackers change their strategies all the time, this is why it’s important to update your anti-virus software and it’s free. If you forget about it, you should set up the update automatically.
Tip 5 – Update Your Web Browser
Your web browser is like a window to the world, always update your latest Chrome, FireFox, Internet Explorer or Safari versions don’t ignore them. Do it right away and keep up to date as to which is the most secure browser.
Tip 6 – Secure Your Facebook Web Address
Your Facebook address should be https:// and not http://. To change it, go to your Facebook settings, go to secure browsing/security and enable Facebook on a secure connection (https), save it.
Tip 7 – Avoid Using Public Free Wi-Fi
Sad but true don’t use public free WI-FI, hackers can steal your Facebook and email passwords using a simple FireFox plugin. In public places, it’s safer to use your own computer with a Wi-Fi USB key.
Tip 8 – Keep Your Secrets Over The Phone
Don’t send to anyone online, password, username or any secrets. If you have to do for your workers or family, pick up the phone.
Tip 9 – Back Up!!!
Back up everything to an external hard drive, emails, address book, photos, docs and blog contents. Adding to this, back up also your cell phone content, contacts, calendar, music and photos.
Tip 10 – Monitor Your Emails
Monitor your logged on locations, down the bottom of your Gmail see the line ‘last account activity’ this shows the last activity of your email – if something is suspicious act right away.
Tip 11 – Secure Banking Online
When you are doing your banking online, ensure that all others web tabs are closed, emails, websites… they are open windows to hacker.
If you get hacked, don’t panic, change everything, passwords, including the security questions, and of course you do it from a secure computer (don’t use internet cafes). Email your contacts (it’s good to back up all your phone numbers and emails) and apologize for the inconvenience.
If know others tips to prevent hackers, please share.
