How to Prevent Cyber Crime

The internet can be a dangerous place. It’s growing exponentially by leaps and bounds every year, all of us can see it happening before our very eyes. There’s a constant need for vigilance against fraud, social media account impersonation, stalking, and harassment.

5 Ways to Prevent Cyber Crime

Here are a few tips you can apply to your life today in order to minimize cyber crime for you and your loved ones.

1. Log off When You Step Away

Believe it or not, a lot of cybercrime can happen in person with the physical location of your computer. Say you are in a cafe or some other internet hotspot and need to go to the bathroom and step away from your laptop for a moment. You’ve been here over a hundred times now, the staff will watch over your equipment, right?

Quite a bit can happen in these few minutes while you have stepped away from your laptop or other devices. Make sure to log off from your account. Ensure that you also have a complex password waiting on them if these individuals decide to peek at your device while you have stepped away.

This is a relatively simple thing, but it can take a lot of discipline depending on the person.

2. Turn Off Your Internet Connection When It’s Not in Use

If you’re not online, then hackers can’t access your device in any way, shape, or form while you are asleep or otherwise inactive.

Many individuals will leave their internet connection as an ongoing thing. This can be costly in a lot of ways, not just on a cyber crime front. For instance, if you are utilizing cellular data, and have a limited plan, then this is a terrible idea for you just on a cost level alone.

Save yourself a potential headache. Log off from an internet connection when you’re done for the night, whether or not you are online via laptop, desktop, or cellular device.

3. Share Less of Your Personal Life Online

Social media can be fun, but it can also create an aperture for criminals to interact with you and your family. Don’t give these individuals a full view of you and your life. Things like your date of birth, the city you live in, your street address, and more can easily bridge the gap between you and complete anonymity online.

Simply put, give as little personal information as possible on social media platforms. You’ll never know who might be on the other end, sizing you up as a potential victim.

4. Keep Personal Security Software Updated

This includes antivirus programs, malware defense, and much more. There are many apertures in which cyber crime can take place. Utilize all forms of protective barriers on the market for you and your electronic devices to insulate you from the very worst out there. You’ll be glad you did.

5. Be Careful What You Click On

There are many phishing scams out there hidden as seemingly innocuous-looking hyperlinks. This is a time-old tradition with email systems, causing spam folders everywhere to be inundated with all varieties of chaos.

If you’re unsure of something, like a link or an image embedded in an email, don’t click on it. Period.

An easy way of determining if a link is hazardous is to hover your mouse cursor over it. Many browsers will give you a URL in the low-left corner of your screen indicating where the link will lead you to. If it doesn’t look like an official website of any sort, or if it looks strange in any way, delete the email immediately and report it as spam.

Take the Right Steps to Prevent Cyber Crime

If you feel like you’re the victim of cyber crime, then don’t fret. With Information.com’s powerful reverse search tools, you can get an edge on someone who is harassing you and your loved ones.

Information.com can help to uncover a lot about someone based on the information they might give you. All it takes is an email or an IP address, and this criminal search engine can help bridge the gap between an anonymous harasser, and an all-too-human pest.

What you end up digging up could be the difference between a shadowy individual harassing you and others, or law enforcement zeroing in on them and stopping them in their tracks.

So, if someone is trying to get the best of you online, get key details on them quickly and painlessly with Information.com.