Ways To Safeguard Our Personal And Financial Data
When making any transaction online such as online banking, online transaction or logging in to our own email account would enable any hacker to gain any information they need from passwords to credit card numbers. Therefore, we need to keep our data from as safe as possible and don’t even disclose it to your own friends.To safeguard our personal and financial data, we can do it in a number of ways.
Keep operating systems and browser updated
Keeping both of this updated will ensure any security flaws to be patch up and people will not be able take advantage by manipulating it to get our data.
Choose a strong password
Users should choose their desired password or PIN that are hard to be guessed by any person.Password or PIN are recommended to be at least 6 words long consisting of alphabet,numbers, lowercase and uppercase. Complex password is always the best choice as hacker will have a hard time cracking it.
Have an anti-virus and anti-spyware
By having anti-virus and anti-spyware would help to prevent any malicious program from embedding themselves in to your computer system. Literally by having both would not be enough if the user does not update and scan their computer on a regular basis. Having 1 type of anti-virus and anti-spyware is not enough as they do not guarantee a well protected computer. It is best to have additional anti-virus or anti-spyware for added security.
Avoid accessing in public area
Users should not access their personal or financial data using free wireless access that is available to them in the public. This is because data that is send through wireless technology can be easily traced and read unless the data is encrypted. Other than that, users should not access any sensitive data using public computer like in the cyber-cafe. This is because, there might be malicious program planted into the computer to capture data entered by unsuspected users.
Have a firewall
Having a firewall would actually slow that internet connection as they will go through a layer of protection that will scan and read any data pass through it. Firewall is recommended as they are able to block any unwanted communication from being establish to the web unless it is being expressly allowed by the users.
Secure Website
Users need to be aware of the pages they are visiting or web site where they are doing thier online transaction. Users should look for web pages that are secure which is usually have a "lock sign". Web pages which contain 3rd party certificate such as Verisign, Trustgate and others can help to minimize data from being stolen as they shows that a particular site have neccesary security features such as SSL (security socket layer) which provides security and data integrity over the internet.
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