Don’t Get Hooked! Protect Yourself from Phishers

Technology brings convenience to people’s lives. Regrettably, it also becomes a way to conduct crimes easily like cybercrimes through better internet connection and as people discover the convenient of online shopping and maintaining online accounts. As further improvements and developments occur in the technology world, hackers also devised several ways to steal people’s personal information such as phishing.

Understanding phishing

Online campaigns educate people about how hackers distribute viruses through applications installed in computers or websites, letting them crawl in the system to spy and obtain passwords and other sensitive personal information. Since this technique is already out in the open, hackers came up with phishing techniques to obtain your information.

Phishing is like fishing for information done online. Hackers distribute links of forged websites like online banking pages and similar websites. You’ll be alerted by ‘regular maintenance procedures’ that require contact information and password updates. Once you updated your ‘account’, you’re sending away information, giving the hacker all the details needed to steal your identity and money.

Protecting yourself from phishers

Fortunately, equipping yourself with knowledge protect you from phishers. Take note of the following tips to keep phishers away from your personal details:

• Avoid clicking links from your spam folder. You get junk mails all the time and you have probably noticed that some of them have subjects about your personal account. However, there’s a high chance that these links are used for phishing while others are mere advertisements. Nevertheless, avoid clicking on the links on spam mails at all cost.
• Don’t be tricked by money. You’re probably familiar with some advisories about winning a raffle and asking you to type personal details on the given link to get your price. Keep in mind, however, that there’s no such thing as raffle using your IP address or others. Moreover, you won’t win on something that you didn’t signed up for. Don’t click on these message links if you didn’t join any contests. You might become a phishing victim due to these announcements.
• Check for https. A website URL has http when you check it on the address bar. Websites for shopping or online accounts often have https, which is the secured SSL certificate on the page. Always check the page if it uses this syntax to ensure account security.
• Different passwords for different accounts. People make the mistake of using a single password for all their accounts, whether they’re for personal emails or online bank accounts. The problem is that using the same password gives hackers access to all your other accounts. Set different passwords across all your accounts for security purposes.
• Be knowledgeable of specific site advisories. Webmasters like PayPal know that their pages are forged for phishing. Hence, they disseminate information about distinguishing the real site from phisher-forge sites. For PayPal, emails regarding about accounts and activities are addressed using your full name. Suspicious sites, however, use vague addressees like ‘Dear Member’ or similar wordings. Be updated with these news to protect your accounts.

Keep your accounts safe through these tips. Being knowledgeable will protect your identity and finances by preventing hackers from accessing your cyber accounts.