Don't become a victim: Tips to reduce the risk of cybercrime

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As part of an average day, millions of people log onto the Internet for shopping, banking, and social media. These days it is important to take preventative measures to protect yourself and business networking. They apply to jobs, research genealogy, find old friends, download music, take a course, you name it. Unfortunately, along with these benefits comes increased risks of becoming a victim of cybercrime.

Tips to reduce the risk of cybercrime

Get educated: When aiming to protect yourself against cybercrime, it is important to be aware of the risks. Keep up to date on the current illegal trends. Arming yourself with this knowledge will help decrease your chances of becoming a target by the “bad guys”.

Be vigilant: It is a good idea to be careful when sharing any of your personal information over the Internet. It’s also important to make sure you only share few if any, details about yourself with people you meet online. Criminals are good at piecing bits of information together and also use social media to obtain it. For instance, listing your birthday is up on the list of things not to do, yet many people routinely share their birthdays with the world.

Passwords: Use strong passwords, don’t reuse passwords on different sites and never enter passwords in any links received through email or social media. Change your password on a routine basis.(Keep in mind, some experts say not to change passwords too often because these are hard to remember and can lead to weak passwords. Better to have a less-changed, but solid one that is harder to break).

Protect your devices: Keep all devices, desktop and mobile, protected by an anti-virus suite, including a firewall.

Use caution with email/social media: Be cautious with attachments, and be absolutely sure you know what you are downloading before you do it. If necessary, first check with the recipient directly (not through the email sent). Additionally, be wary of links that arrive in email or in social media feeds, these could be phishing emails and/or lead to malware-infected websites.

Read Privacy Policies: Read privacy policies of any online entity you conduct business with. Be aware of what the business or agency is doing with your personal data before giving them these details. Sometimes third parties are given access to your personal information and you want to avoid any additional potential identity theft risks.

The Internet offers a great number of tangible benefits. However, taking precautions before sharing any of your personally identifying information across the digital highways will help reduce the risks of your becoming a victim.