How To Protect Your Data on the Internet
For the last decade the Internet has changed the way we live and interact with our life. Nowadays we buy apparel and electronics in online stores just sitting in our comfortable chairs and without spending any time or money on the trip. Your favorite movies, games, songs - almost everything now may be downloaded from the Internet. Even dealing with money on your bank account in most cases doesn't need visiting bank anymore. Moreover, the number of things you can do online increases every day.
But along with Internet's convenience there are things you should know in order to protect your data and secure any information that is important to you. As you know, Internet is also being used by con artists, hackers and different malicious programs that can constitute a menace for your computer. And it doesn't matter whether you just check your e-mails or have a business online, safe computing is a necessary thing to practice. With taking only a few basic security measures you may drastically reduce chances to become victim of online threats.
Secure Your Personal Information
First of all, never underestimate the importance of securing your personal information. It is the latter that can give access to your credit cards, bank accounts, medical records and some other assets to identity thieves.
Some of you may think that you're just nobody special and there are no reasons for anyone to obtain your personal information. But actually everyone can become a victim of identity theft. According to Federal Trade Commission, millions of consumers are being victimized by online criminals every year. Isn't it staggering? So everybody should take different preventative measures to be sure that his personal data is safe and there is no easy way to obtain it.
Use a Firewall
Decades ago firewall has been used only in network environments, but nowadays it has become a popular tool for securing data for usual users too. Spyware and virus scanners are also necessary, but they can only watch over the malicious software and become useless in case if intruder intentionally wants to steal your personal data. This is when firewall comes to help, as it can monitor network traffic and block any way for online criminals to the computer. It acts like a personal security guard and looks for outside intrusions to alert user if someone will suddenly attempt to access your computer. Some products have extended functionality and are capable of denying applications to access or communicate with any third-party source and download possibly dangerous content.
With the growth of the Internet the number of hacking attempts has also increased, and that's why many newest network devices and operating systems are equipped with firewalls. Some of them also have built-in anti-virus programs. If any action is taken in the Internet it is important to be ensured that the firewall is properly configured, enabled, and up-to-date thus providing the best protection it can. If you use the built-in firewall on your Windows OS, make sure you receive updates from the Microsoft site regularly. In other case you have all chances to become an easy target for Internet prowlers.
Additional Security Measures
Besides protecting your personal data and using a firewall there are more measures that may be taken in order to better secure your data. Security software, password protection schemes and encryption mechanisms sometimes also allow keeping online criminals away from any personal or confidential information.