Don’t get hacked – Basics

You guys may have come across numerous news, articles stating a particular website got hacked, hackers stole data, credit cards fraud etc.
So let’s check what basic precautions are available to us, before we become subject to such hacking attacks.

Passwords:

Make sure you have no easy to guess passwords, as per survey reports for each year it is seen people keeping hack-able passwords such as “123456“, “123456789“, “qwerty“, “password“, passw0rd“, football fans are keeping their password as “manutd“, “mancity“, superhero fans are keeping their password as “superman” & so on. These passwords are so simple to crack that, you won’t even come to know if someone also has access to your accounts.
It is suggested to keep a password of non-dictionary word, with combination of uppercase/lowercase alphabets, special character such as (@#$%!) & numbers. Well that does not mean you can use something like “P@$$w0rd”, these are also easy to guess now a days. Also you should be keeping different passwords for different websites. Just in case if your one password is leaked the damaged would be under control as it’s effect would be restricted.

Emails:

Use separate emails for your banking/financial, do not use the same email address for other websites, you may land up in receiving spam emails from other sources, these emails may have phishing links, on clicking those links you may land up making your system compromised. It is not necessary to read each & every email you receive in your inbox, if you did not remembered signing for it in past, better try to avoid. Look for the email address carefully of the sender, is there any manipulation or look-alike of the original sender, if so, don’t open.

Antivirus:

Do not go for free or good looking advertisement showing you offer low price deal on antivirus, if you have not known of any name of such antivirus earlier, do not install, they can be seriously dangerous, instead of antivirus, these software may install suspicious codes in your machine making your system vulnerable. Always buy it from company’s official website only or offline retailers.

Other Useful tips:

Regarding physical cards, there’s not much you can do, other than avoid shopping at shady retailers, real-world or online.

Using your Mobile-based payment systems like UPI is actually more secure than physical cards. Since transaction uses a unique number, so hackers gain nothing by having hold of transaction data. Make sure to protect your mobile device with a fingerprint or a strong passcode, and always keep it with you. Do not install unverified apps from third party.

Do not fill out any information on web forms beyond what is absolutely required. If it’s required but not relevant, like your street address on a site that doesn’t ship things to you, make something up.

It is better to put in your efforts earlier than to recover- if hackers managed to steal it. Also in many cases your recovery may not be guaranteed.

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