PB TEAM | JALANDHAR
In this 21st century, the internet is a boom to us, where our every problem is solved at ease and in very less time. But there are people who use the Internet for taking advantage of others and doing frauds just for their fun sake and earn some money. These types of people are known as ‘Black Hat Hackers’.
‘Hacker’ is the term given to those, who can access your data with or without the owner’s permission. Neither it is a good term nor a bad one but just Hacker. People who use their knowledge for good purpose are known as ‘White Hat Hacker’ whereas people who use the same for wrong work are known as ‘Black Hat Hacker’. The whole act, which is done by the hacker, is known as ‘Hacking’.
At one point or another, every single person might have faced some phone calls, e-mails or SMS, from strangers claiming themselves as genuine and legitimate employees of the bank. They start earning your trust and later they ask for your personal information such as your bank account number, credit/debit card number, CVV, etc. They will use this gathered information for their advantage. Which is known as ‘Social Engineering’.
Likewise, there are some web sites, web applications or mobile applications, which will ask you for password or there may be a case, when you download something from the internet, they will prompt you with a form asking you to register for downloading or some web sites claim to give you more discount or redeem coupons as compared to others, just by signing or logging into them. In all the cases above, there is only one thing in common, that is, they are asking you to enter your credentials such as username and password, regardless of whether you are receiving the services or not. This whole process of collecting the information is known as ‘Phishing’. All this made us to consult with the IT expert Palwinder Singh, founder of SECUNEUS Technologies, Jalandhar.
For which he told various tips that you can follow just to keep yourself secure. They are:-
1. Never visit any phishy website.
2. Never download anything from doubtful source or web site.
3. Keep your Laptop’s, Desktop’s or any other system’s security updates on.
4. Never turn off your firewall or any antivirus software.
5. Never give your device to other people, especially to strangers.
6. Never give your personal information to any stranger.
7. Never use any public systems for logging into your accounts.
Some security tips:-
1. Never share your OTP with anyone.
2. Never share the PIN of your card with anyone.
3. Keep changing your password on regular interval of time.
4. Always try to keep different passwords for all web logins, never keep all your password same.
5. Never use single or easy guessable password. Always use paraphrases as your password, which should contain at least 8 characters with a combination of lower-case and upper-case alphanumeric character with some special symbols.
6. Use https://haveibeenpwned.com/ to check if your email id is compromised or not.
7. For mobile applications, always see the permissions to which you have allowed the access of the resources.
