We live in the digital era, and while it comes up with a bunch of perks, it also has its cons that are way more hazardous than the former.
This digitalization has offered many ways for individuals to succeed in life. It has also made a route for cyber hackers, attackers, and spies, to use the digital world to their advantage.
5 ways to Improve Online Privacy If Your Passwords Aren’t Strong
If you look around in the world or look into the global stats of cyberattacks, you will see them rising with every passing year and decade.
These cyberattacks became worse during the global pandemic. With people working, accessing, and using public and personal computers to work, individuals and businesses have become more vulnerable to cyberattacks.
To curb these cyberattacks, you need a VPN. A VPN will encrypt all your data and prevent it from leaking. We recommend NordVPN for this. Learn more about this VPN by reading a proper NordVPN review online.
According to cybersecurity facts by Varonis, 36 billion records were exposed due to data breaches during the first quarter of 2020. You can imagine how alarming the situation must be during the pandemic for the cybersecurity workers trying to curb this situation.
When it comes to online privacy, passwords are the first thing hackers or cyber attackers tend to break. People with easy passwords are the most vulnerable to get hacked. The world has evolved, and hackers can hack even the most complicated passwords of people and corporations for data breaches.
If you haven’t thought about this before and are thinking about it now, then it’s high time that you become concerned about this situation and take relevant action over it.
Why is online privacy essential to take care of?
Digitalization in the 21st century is not as safe as you think. You are being tracked and spied by not just cyber attackers and spies anymore but also tech giants who store your data without informing you and sell it to third-party websites.
Take the biggest search engine Google as an example. Google tracks you everywhere over the internet and identifies you separately with your Gmail account.
This enables it to know what you search for (Google search engine), where you go (using Google Maps), what you desire to watch (YouTube), which apps you install (Google Play Store), and what you write in your emails (Gmail).
Google then sells all this data to advertisers that display personalized ads on websites and other platforms when you use the internet.
Five ways to improve your online privacy:
You need to stop considering yourself safe by only password protecting your accounts and improve your online privacy using the following methods:
1. Use two-factor authentication:
When cyber threats started taking place at an alarming rate, websites became highly concerned. And to curb this scenario, they introduced two-factor authentication.
Two-factor authentication (2FA) is an additional security parameter added to websites if someone tries to access your account.
When you register to a website, or when you forget your password and need to regain access to your account, the website sends a code to either your phone number or email address to confirm if this action is being taken by you or not.
You then enter the code sent to you on the website to verify that you are taking that action. This is two-factor authentication and is a significant measure to take to keep your accounts secure.
2. Avoid using public wi-fi:
Public wi-fi is yet another way to collect user data and information quickly. Hackers and spies lurk around on public wi-fi to collect data of users. Avoid visiting websites that require you to enter private data onto it. Your data might be getting monitored while you’re at it, and your information can get leaked at any time.
3. Use an effective VPN:
Using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) may be a luxury back in the days, but it’s undoubtedly an essential tool now. A VPN is the only effective tool to keep you anonymous over the internet and safe from any data leaks.
A VPN masks your identity and creates an encrypted tunnel between you and the site you’re visiting. It also alters your IP address into an address of one of its server locations to keep websites from tracking your original information.
It also lets you connect a single account to several devices to keep yourself protected everywhere.
4. Use a password manager:
If you keep a similar password of all your websites or juggle the same two passwords on them, then you’re doing it all wrong. And if you use a different password on websites but your passwords look somewhat like this: “12345”, then, well, that’s equally disastrous.
You require the most robust passwords to prevent your data from getting breached. In case you’re afraid that you won’t remember them, you can always use an effective password manager.
The best password managers to use are:
- Dashlane
- 1Password
- Lastpass
5. Use private browsers:
If you didn’t know this before, then we’re telling you now, you can always use private browsers to keep yourself secure. These private browsers do not track any information or follow you over the internet to monitor you. They also keep you safe from third-party advertisers.
These private browsers include DuckDuckGo and StartPage. These search engines do not collect any history or click either.
Conclusion:
Cybersecurity is one thing to stay vigilant about as technology evolves. You need to stop relying on passwords as the only source of data and account protection and improve your security ways. The methods mentioned above are pretty effective and can easily protect your activities on the internet.