Protect your online profiles from hackers and phishers

THERE is no doubt that today the world is ‘connected’. Whether it is through a smartphone, tablet or laptop, our lives have very quickly evolved to center around all things digital.

Have you ever left your mobile phone at home and felt completely lost without it – worrying about who may be trying to contact you or what messages you are missing? As we start to rely on being connected to the internet more, for almost everything we do, we also tend to create several online accounts for ourselves – and with that, we produce an online identity. These online accounts allow us to enjoy the convenience of shopping or banking online, using social media to chat to friends and even book holidays – but in doing all this, have you ever stopped to think whether your online accounts and identity can be compromised by online hackers, and what would this mean?

Yes, the internet provides some incredible benefits and convenience to users, however, it is also a place where malicious users lurk. These users tend to target unsuspecting or naive individuals through tactics like phishing or spamming, all for the purpose of stealing data (including personal information and passwords), compromising online identities or even for holding internet users ransom (they lock your computer and will only release a code to ‘open’ the computer once you pay a ransom fee).

Research recently undertaken by Kaspersky Lab highlighted that in the third quarter of 2017, its anti-phishing solution prevented 59 569 508 attempted visits to phishing pages on the computers of users of Kaspersky Lab products.

Despite this, a recent survey* commissioned by Kaspersky Lab in South Africa found that 43 per cent of respondents who participated in the survey and own a smartphone or tablet PC do not have a security solution installed on their device. This is a problem, as it means that far too many people are leaving themselves vulnerable to being targeted by malicious users and running the risk of having their confidential information or online identities stolen.

So, what steps can be taken to allow you to still enjoy the convenience of the online world, but also ensure your privacy and online identity is protected? Riaan Badenhorst, general manager at Kaspersky Lab Africa provide us with the following key tips providing a good starting point:

• Understand that every social network is a ‘treasure trove’ for scammers/phishers, who use these sites to gather users’ private data. As such, it’s always a good idea to do a check on the security settings of all your social media accounts (such as Facebook) and make sure the privacy settings are activated.

• Your email holds the ‘key’ to most of your accounts, as the password recovery operation (when you can’t remember your password) is often sent via email notifications. So, it is critical to ensure that your primary email address is fully protected. There are many IT security solutions available that can assist with this.

• Avoid using open Wi-Fi networks to connect to the internet, as often these open networks don’t have good security measures in place. What happens is that a cybercriminal creates a similar looking network to the one you are using, and then by using a laptop and Wi-Fi adaptor they can remotely intercept logins and passwords of anyone trying to connect to the fake Wi-Fi network set up.

• Always create and use very strong passwords. A strong password is made up of a combination of upper- and lower-case alphabetic letters and numbers and should be about 15 characters long. Don’t use the same password for all your online accounts.

• Invest in security solutions for all your devices, as this will provide an extra layer of protection – giving you the peace of mind when you are online.

While security software is a strong way to safeguard your information online, user behaviour is just as critical. So, make sure your digital and connected life remain safe from online hackers.

*Kaspersky Lab worked with Associated Media to run an online survey asking questions related to the connected home and the security of connected devices. There were 266 respondents to the survey.

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