Safer Internet – What your parents, boss and ex-boyfriend have to do with this?

How simple actions can prevent big headaches......

My dear friends, with the increased number of tools we can use in internet to communicate and have friends like us, that even though in different countries, can share ideas, photos, keep in contact, follow some family member’s life and growth, etc, it is also increasing the number of attacks to our computers as well as the information it is used against ourselves. Several famous people have already had photos or personal emails published and sold after stolen from their computers and/or private network Facebook, twitter, etc.

I am a fun of internet as it allow us to work from home and to keep communicating and have insights from everyplace of world, enriching or lives and making easier to live abroad for instance. I guess you also can not live without it, so I would like to share with you some tips to increase security of our data that probably you have already heard some of them, and some not, but I gathered the ones I thought very helpful, because it is difficult to prevent some attacks of we are not a computer specialist, but it is easier to watch our actions so we do not give arguments for our cyber enemies to act against ourselves.

• Pay attention to the information you publish on Internet. You may only want to make a joke with friends but it can be used against you by a worker at your company that want to prejudice you, by an ex boyfriend, etc. Several cases of people were fired, realized some time ago that it was because of unreal interpretation of their pictures showed at their personal websites. If you always appears drinking, can be cataloged as alcoholic, if you always appears making grimaces or showing your tongue, or even your body, excessively publishing photos in bikinis and/or bathing/swimming suits it can be understood as not being a serious person and preventing you from getting that job, promotion, boy/girlfriend, etc
• An excellent advice I’ve listened once about this matter is – “Keep on the screen of your computer a picture of your parents, boss, ex-boy/girlfriend and an space that represents your next boy/girlfriend and before publishing any information on your personal sites, take a look on those pictures……..if you think any of those would not like it and would be happy to use it against you (for example your ex boy/girlfriend) then do not publish it”
• Before sending your computer to any revision, ensure to remove personal pictures that were to be shared only with your husband, wife, or very intimate people. Remove also the folder were they were because computer specialists can recover some deleted data and have access to them as well
• If you have children or share your computer with other people ensure to have your personal information separated and preferably encrypted so if they access any malicious email/site, your data will not be so exposure
• Especially in case of your children, talk with them about those risks and teach them to never give personal information such as full name, school, time/place of their activities, address and thinks like that because they can easily be gotten by wrong people and could end in a express kidnap for instance. Also teach them to use a nickname different from his own names and in case of people asking too much and/or saying inappropriate things for them to talk to you first.
• Keep your antivirus and operational software updated

Hope that helps you and your family. We cannot stop professional hackers as we do not have the same knowledge of them, but we certainly can adopt saver habits that can prevent us from some headaches.