-Advertisement-

What you need to know is that, statistically speaking, one in four people have already been hacked!

Every day at Mimikama we check contaminated emails that are sent to us for review, which often lead to phishing sites - or, in the worst case, carry a virus as a file attachment.

Here are 10 tips to help you better protect your data on the Internet!

1. Check privacy settings on social networks

If you are logged into social networks, these networks have a lot of information about you. For this reason, we strongly recommend that you review your privacy settings: the decision about what information you want to share with the outside world is entirely up to you.

Tip: Change the privacy settings of your social network accounts. This is how it works on Facebook , Twitter , LinkedIn , Instagram , Snapchat and VK.com .

2. Do not use public sharing services to store private information

Oversharing is not exclusive to social networks. Do not use online information sharing services to store your private information. For example, Google Docs isn't the ideal place to store a list of your passwords, nor is Dropbox a good place to store copies of your ID unless the archive is encrypted.

Tip: Do not use sharing services to store private data.

3. Avoid tracking

When you visit a website, your browser reveals a lot of information about you and your surfing habits. Marketers use this information to profile you and ply you with ads tailored to your interests. Even incognito mode cannot prevent tracking of your online activities; Special tools are required for this.

Tip: Use the “Private Browsing” component of our Kaspersky Internet Security to avoid Internet tracking .

4. Keep your email address and cell phone number to yourself

Your reward for sharing your email address and phone number with online services? Tons of spam in your inbox and countless spam calls on your cell phone. Although you cannot avoid sharing such information with Internet services and online stores, you should not reveal your cell phone number or email address to anyone on social networks.

Tip: Create an additional email account and purchase an additional SIM card that you can use for online shopping and other situations where you need to share your information with strangers.

5. Use messaging apps with end-to-end encryption

Many modern messaging apps only encrypt data in transit - meaning messages are decrypted on the provider's side and stored on the appropriate servers. But what happens if these servers are hacked? It's better not to take this risk and opt for end-to-end encryption; This means that even the provider of the messaging service has no insight into your conversations.

Tip: Use a messaging app with end-to-end encryption, such as WhatsApp, and note that Facebook Messenger, Telegram and Google Allo do not use end-to-end encryption by default. To activate this, you must manually start a private chat.

6. Use strong passwords

If you use weak passwords to protect your private information, you might as well trumpet your information to the world. It's almost impossible to remember long and unique passwords for all the services you use; However, with a password manager you only need to remember a single master password.

Tip: Use long (12 characters and more) passwords and, above all, use a different password for each service. To make it easier to use more secure ones, they use a password manager .

7. Take a look at all app permissions

Mobile apps ask you to give them permissions to access contacts or files in the device storage and use the camera, microphone, geolocation, etc. In fact, many apps cannot function without these permissions, while others use this information solely to profile you for marketing purposes. Fortunately, you can easily control the permissions specifically granted to each app. The same applies to browser extensions, which often have spying tendencies.

Tip: Take a look at the permissions you grant to mobile apps. Here's how it works on Android and iOS and don't install browser extensions if you don't really need them.

8. Secure your cell phone and computer with passwords

Our computers and cell phones store a lot of data that we would prefer to keep private. Therefore, protect your devices with passwords. These passwords do not have to be complicated and unique, but should prevent unwanted people from accessing your devices. For mobile devices, you might want to do a little better and opt for six-digit PIN numbers or actual passwords instead of four-digit PIN numbers or screen lock patterns. For devices that support biometric authentication, keep in mind that these technologies have some limitations .

Tip: Use passwords or biometric authentication to protect your smartphones, tablets, and computers.

9. Turn off lock screen notifications

Do you protect your smartphone with a long, secure password, but can you still see notifications on the lock screen? To ensure that this information is no longer displayed on the lock screen, notifications should be set up accordingly.

Tip: Turn off lock screen notifications or hide sensitive information. This is how it works on Android and iOS .

10. Always use a VPN on public WiFi networks

Public Wi-Fi networks typically do not encrypt traffic, and this means anyone on the same network can try to access your traffic. Don't transmit sensitive data (logins, passwords, credit card details, etc.) over public Wi-Fi and use a VPN like Kaspersky Secure Connection to encrypt your data and keep it away from prying eyes.

Tip: Avoid public Wi-Fi networks if possible. If you can't avoid connecting to a public hotspot, always use a VPN .

Additional note: Enter the code now and test Kaspersky Security Cloud free of charge for 3 months!

At Mimikama, we check infected emails every day that you send us for review, which often lead to phishing pages - or, in the worst case, carry a virus as a file attachment.

So that we don't get cracked or hacked or catch a Trojan or virus, we have been working with our cooperation partner's antivirus program for years! In all these years we have never caught anything or fallen victim to a phishing attack because the protection software warned us in good time!

Since we can highly recommend this, we went to great lengths and got a code for you. If you want, you can now test our protection software for free for 3 months! This would mean that you would be just as safe on the road as we are!

The code for this is “ mimikama-hackinghurts

You can enter this code here: https://kas.pr/kl_mimikama


If you enjoyed this post and value the importance of well-founded information, become part of the exclusive Mimikama Club! Support our work and help us promote awareness and combat misinformation. As a club member you receive:

📬 Special Weekly Newsletter: Get exclusive content straight to your inbox.
🎥 Exclusive video* “Fact Checker Basic Course”: Learn from Andre Wolf how to recognize and combat misinformation.
📅 Early access to in-depth articles and fact checks: always be one step ahead.
📄 Bonus articles, just for you: Discover content you won't find anywhere else.
📝 Participation in webinars and workshops : Join us live or watch the recordings.
✔️ Quality exchange: Discuss safely in our comment function without trolls and bots.

Join us and become part of a community that stands for truth and clarity. Together we can make the world a little better!

* In this special course, Andre Wolf will teach you how to recognize and effectively combat misinformation. After completing the video, you have the opportunity to join our research team and actively participate in the education - an opportunity that is exclusively reserved for our club members!


Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )