Be Tech Savvy,learn top tricks & security tips to dodge online scams & internet fraud

As digitalization is on rapid increase & people are very much dependent on it to make their life easy, so is the risk of exposure & exploit of our personal data. There isn’t a single day when cyber-crime news doesn’t hit the headlines. Every technology has its pros & cons, so does digitalization. Security & convenience both cannot be achieved completely though it’s totally in our hand how we manage both by taking some safety measures & practices. It is always said that "human are the weakest link in security" so our little negligence can be hacker’s biggest strength. If we stay alert all the time & take some precautionary steps then we can easily bypass the hideous tricks which hackers use to pull on us. Here are some of the useful tips I want to share with you people –follow 3 simple rules when you go online -1) THINK 2) CHECK 3) CONNECT. Think twice before opening any email, links or any other content from unknown source or visiting any less trusted website or downloading any app on your phone. Always check for the possible threats like if someone is peeking through your password or other confidential credential while you are logging in or whether your device security is compromised when you are finally sure of everything then connect safely.

KEEP A CLEAN & SECURED MACHINE:
As regular cleaning of house is necessary for keeping dust & unwanted bugs/flies of similarly keeping our computers clean of viruses & malware is a must do thing to strengthen our security. We use to keep heck loads of data, personal information, bank details, digital media or whatnot in our personal computers & often save login credentials for certain websites too for a quick login, so if someone gets access to our PCs then it’s like handing our key to online home which can unlock any of the rooms easily.

Keep your system up to date: Hackers are frequently finding vulnerabilities in existing system to gain access to computers & that is why companies release new updates to patch up those loop holes, so it is always recommended to keep your system & software up to date.
Install decent antivirus software: Having trusted antivirus software is a must do thing it provides a parental care to our PCs restricting unwanted apps & downloads or alerting you of potential harmful sites. It also helps to clean off the junks which further eliminate any threat of data lodging & theft.
Regularly scan & remove malwares: Another popular way of hacking into system is installing malware and Trojans to steal information so a frequent check & restricting remote installation without administrative permission is a good call.
Use a trusted web browser: web browser is a way to connect online so choosing one which provides maximum security is what we should prefer. I personally recommend Google Chrome because it’s been hailed as the most secured browser again & again.
Never leave your computer unattended: It is for obvious reason as no one wants unwanted stalkers in their premises, another reason is to avoid letting someone install spywares and key loggers to hack it.

    BEWARE OF PHISHING & SCAM:
One of the easiest & widely used hacking techniques is phishing. Phishing is creating a fake login page of some famous and trusted websites like that of social media website or your bank website to trick users into revealing their login credential of that proposed sites. As phishing page look exactly same as the original site so some people may fall for it assuming it legit. Hackers usually set up a look alike fake site & send this to victim via email or message camouflaging it to some legit reason like that of password recovery prompt or illegal access notification, asking user to login into their account to fix it, & people easily fall for it logging through that fake page gives the user credentials to hackers hand and pheww! You are screwed, but don’t worry here are ways to easily identify these tricks if you keep your eyes open & apply that THINK-CHECK-CONNECT rule. So here are some quickies you should follow- Learn to identify phishing emails: phishing emails are mostly bank or financial account related but it can be of some social media too like that of Facebook/Gmail or twitter. Most of the phishing mail promotes gifts on behalf of a bank or trusted website to lure customers or appear as a reminder to a loss of an existing account or as an illegal login alert. These reasons are quite catchy & people use to jump on it to take action, here you are falling for the trap. So never reset your account password through a mail, always visit the site to check yourself if your account password is really changed or is there any security breaches in your account. If it is offering you some gifts or beneficial services from bank never jump on the opportunity to claim it first visit your bank website or rather call to make sure that offer is legit.
Never visit your bank or any other social site through a link: It is always good to be safe than sorry, so whenever in a doubt avoid trusting fishy mail.
Never open any link directly through email from unknown sources: especially when it is from an unknown source as you never want to go on a ride blindfolded. You never know where that link takes you or what type of data it contains, it can be a one click malware which can be easily installed on your system just with a single click & hence you are hijacked.
Always check the URL of a phishing link: URLs can be easily camouflaged even a phishing site can have the same URL as that of the original site through some software easily available in web like www.tinyurl.com . You can check if the link is directing you to a trusted site or not just by hovering your cursor over the link & the original URL will be displayed in the bottom left corner of your browser. For example you get a link directing it to your Facebook profile whose URL is www.facebook.com/username but when you hover your cursor above that link you will see that the actual URL is something like www.facebookk.com/username. Hope you got the catch.

    SECURE YOUR PASSWORD & ACCOUNT: Never use password which are easy to guess like your pets name your nick name or your date of birth because anyone who know you can crack your password in just few guesses. I personally recommend to use passwords which have a combination of some character symbols & letters because there are many techniques like brute force attack and password cracking software available which can easily guess any word possible in dictionary so avoid using dictionary words.
Always change your password regularly: passwords are like underwear, you don’t show it to anyone & you change it regularly.
Never use same password for all other accounts: If one of your account is hacked so others all others easily, just like punching a single hole to drown an entire Titanic. Typing a username and password into a website isn't the only way to identify yourself on the web services you can use Two factor authentication.
• Turn on two-step authentication – also known as two-step verification or multi-factor authentication – on accounts where available. Two-factor authentication can use anything from a text message to your phone to a token to a biometric like your fingerprint to provide enhanced account security.
Turn It On: See step-by-step instructions on how to add two-factor authentication to more than 100 online accounts

  SAFE SOCIAL NETWORKING:
Social network is a great way to connect with people similarly anyone can connect to you and gain information you have shared on your profile.

Always keep your profile hidden from unknown peeps: No one wants to share personal information/pictures of them & their friends/families with strangers, right?
Accept friend requests from people you know only:
Never post anything in your profile which you will regret later: your social profile reflects your personality, so never do anything which you don’t want your future employer or spouse to see.
Be specific of your audience of your posts & information you share:
Always turn-on login verification: If your account is logged in from some unknown device you will be verified about that.
Never share your OTP (one time password) or login verification code with anyone: It often happens that we forgot our password & while resetting it OTP is send to our registered device to recover it. Hackers can now send us messages or email asking for OTP setting up a look alike page of that particular website, So beware none of the websites ask you to reveal your OTP via mail/message or phone call.

  SECURE YOUR SMART PHONES:
Our smart phones are pretty much one of the most important part of our life. If its security is compromised then nothing is safe for us as all of our accounts are linked to it. Almost everyone keep their phone secured with a pin or pattern lock, so what can happen when no one can access it? Well there is still some possibility that it can be remotely controlled even if it is in your hand.
If you are an android user, be very conscious of your Google account with which your device is registered: If your Google account is hacked your phone can be entirely remotely controlled even without you knowing about it, pretty scary yeah!
App lock applications are no good if settings of your phone isn’t locked itself: well not many smart phones comes with in-built app lock features, so people rely upon other apps available in store. Most of us are only concerned about securing our social apps so that no one can read our chats or some prefer to lock galleries too who are vary of sharing their pictures or someone like me use to lock up theirs game so that no one can mess with it and we are pretty much satisfied with it & sleep with peace. Knock Knock !! Wake up guys there is just a simple trick to hack this little app lock to unlock all your accounts secured with it. One just need to go to settings then installed apps/application manager then that particular App lock, force stop it or disable it & voila you are screwed. App lock seized to work & whatever accounts you have secured with it are open now. So always remember to lock the settings of your phone if you don’t have an inbuilt app lock.
Avoid using public Wi-Fi: who don’t want free Wi-Fi? Everyone does but it is not actually free it compromises with your security. Through man-in-the-middle attack it is possible to monitor your each and every online activity which include exposing your passwords too if you have tried to login into any of your account when you are over that Wi-Fi network.
Avoid downloading apps from unknown resources: It is always seen that when we can’t find any app in store we jump to download an apk or ipa from some other resource to use it. As those apps are not registered it may be a possible threat to your device as it can gain permission over your device activity & who knows if it were a malware.
Avoid using pop-up notification for messages: It is often noticed that even if our phone is secured with a lock messages may pop-up even in lock scree. Think of a scenario when your phone is out of your sight and someone recently tried to change your Facebook password, you received a verification code in your phone as your phone is out of sour sight hacker can just note down the verification code message pop-up displayed in your lock screen & he’s all set, you are hacked.
Avoid replying to unknown messages or calls to stay away from telly scams.
 

SHOP ONLINE SAFELY:
Online shopping is a blessing in disguise and we all are pretty much obsessed with it but we have to be very careful because there are fake shopping websites too which offers great deals to lure customers into revealing their credit card details via online payment.
Always check the authenticity of a website by making sure the site has https mentioned with a green lock in it: that green shadowed https is’t for decoration, site with https represents it is protected with SSL encryption which ensures whatever data you enter into the website isn’t share with anyone else & your online transaction is safe and sound. Never made card payments to websites which are not protected with SSL encryption.
Learn to identify fraudulent shopping websites: fake websites can be easily spotted, if you notice that there is no terms and conditions for privacy mentioned then it is definitely a fake site, such type of websites offer you great deals & the website look & content lack accuracy, you might find some spelling or grammatical mistakes too. Never make purchase from such sites.

 RECOVER YOUR HACKED ACCOUNT:

If your account has been hacked or compromised here are ways to regain control.

Here are some resources of some widely used social sites to help recover hacked account:

Facebook
 

• Help with cyberbullying and impostor profiles
• Help with a hacked account

Facebook Help Center

 

 

Gmail/Google

Help with a hacked account

Help with an inaccessible account

General　safety tips

Twitter
   

Help with a hacked account

Help with an inaccessible account

Twitter Safety Center

Yahoo
   

Help with a hacked account　

What to do if your account is sending spam

Help Center

 

Outlook
   

Help with a hacked account

Help with an inaccessible account

Hotmail Help Center

YouTube
   

Help with cyberbullying

Help with flagging a spam-based video

Help with a hacked account

YouTube Safety Center

　

Our security lies in our own hands so THINK-CHECK-CONNECT whenever and wherever we go online to stay protected & safe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Universal Second Factor (U2F) Technology

Universal Second Factor (U2F)

–hassle free dual authentication security token to strengthen online protection

Securely log into your account in a matter of few seconds with U2F supported USB stick

 

Online security is becoming a major concern due to frequent hi-tech hacks & online scamming .We are living in a digital world where everyone prefer hassle free online services but every technology has pros & cons where it’s pretty effective & convenient to use, it can be very dangerous too once your credentials get laid in a wrong hand. There are enough malware companies & online frauds to trick costumers into revealing their login credential to access bank accounts, demat accounts online payment services & other social media accounts. As hackers are getting smarter we got to think ahead of them to secure ourselves from online frauds. We want to have both hassle free & secure access to our account though it was not easy to carry out both.

To protect our accounts from password cracking hacks like brute force attack we need to have a strong password which will have numerics & combination of weird alphabets throwing in some capitalization spiced up with some symbols which almost sounds & look like gibberish to sign in our head then we give up & compound our folly with same weak & easy to remember passwords like our pets name D.O.B “password1” & so which can be hacked through social engineering like a child’s play. Unfortunately even strong passwords aren’t enough to secure from ever increasing cyber crime

In an attempt to overcome the risk of password cracking universal two way authentication came into existence. Let me explain you what does universal authentication mean-we secure our accounts with username/email ID & passwords these credentials are stored within the database & whenever we require to login to our account we are asked to enter our credentials which the system will verify checking into the database once it’s found it’ll be universally authenticated & you will be logged in, well this is one way authentication which requires only password to login. So whoever gets hold of your password can easily bypass this system. Two way authentication eliminate this vulnerability of accessing account with just the password as it require two things-1) something you know that’s password  2) something you have like verification code send to your mobile device or email and you prove it that you have access to your verified device. Smart cards & bank cards like debit or credit cards is currently using same technology as it requires both a physical card which you will have & pin number which you know ,without either of these missing you cannot do a transaction. Google is already using this technology for a long time but it has now improved by bringing in the concept of universal second factor

Although dual authentication provide us with double layer of  protection  it is also kind of clumsy to use as we’ll need to check out our phone or email ID for the verification code & then get back to the login process, so it’s like a headache when we are in a hurry. However hackers can set up a look alike site that ask you to provide your verification code hence we can be tricked in that case too.U2F technology spare us with this burden as it provides super easy way to login to our any numbers of online accounts securely with two ways authentication by just inserting a USB device having the security key pre installed in it, which will be automatically identified by the browser & voila you are done without even needing client software or driver so say goodbye to looking up into verification code then jumbling with it to login. Google U2F provides protection against phishing scams as it uses cryptography instead of verification codes & automatically works with only the website it is supposed to work. Hope you all have understood the basic of U2F let’s move on to its technicalities & working.

U2F was made by Google with Yubiko working in partnership with contribution from NXP. This standard is in use by FIDO alliance which includes Google, Microsoft, PayPal, American Express, Visa, Intel, Qualcomm, ARM, Bank of America & many other massive companies .Soon this technology will be all over the web. To use U2F you need to buy to buy a small security key USB device with the FIDO U2F logo that you insert into your computer’s USB port. U2F currently only works with Google chrome browser version 40 or newer, although it is compatible with all OS like Mac Microsoft or Linux. When you insert the USB device, the chrome browser on your computer can communicate with the USB security key through secure encryption & provide the correct response that lets you log into a website. It provides protection from man in the middle attack also as the verification is directly send to the USB that too securely encrypted so there is no chance of  data leak over a vulnerable network.

This U2F security key is linked with your Google account & you can use it with all your devices to securely log into your various online accounts. So you can carry this little USB device as a car key with you always & use it to get into your accounts easily on the go. It has some inconvenience too as it requires a USB port to connect to so it is not compatible with a mobile-only users but in near future it will with paired Bluetooth device to enable mobile phone U2F application. You have to be extra careful not to lose it because once it gets into the hand of someone who knows your password then it’ll serve as a full plate meal to snob off your account.

So overall it’s a smart technology to strengthen online security covering all possible loopholes in internet. It provides both quick & secure access to our accounts so we can easily do online transaction on the go without worrying about risking our confidentiality. Soon all type of  business will be backed by U2F technology to offer simple & protected two way authentication. As hackers are getting more sophisticated strong password are no longer secure to protect us so we need to upgrade our arsenal with smart technologies to step up our defence.