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Taking care of the security of your personal information is not just the responsibility of companies: you also need to take certain precautions and protect your privacy online! But how to do this, exactly?
Certain measures can be taken to prevent information leaks, as well as hacker attacks, from occurring and putting your data and peace of mind at risk. As incredible as it may seem, these recommendations are not difficult: they will just take a little of your time.
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Can believe: there is no secure 100% service. Therefore, all the care you can take with your online privacy is little!
Is taking care of online privacy expensive?
No! In fact, much of the content is purely informative and there is no need to invest a single cent. However, some paid solutions can be very interesting to make your online privacy even more solid.
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Many software make your smartphone much more protected, and this is especially important if you like to shop online, for example. Many people still use their mobile devices to access bank accounts, but they don't take any extra precautions!
Follow these tips: protect yourself!
Time to make your device more secure against threats to your online privacy. Follow all recommendations strictly:
Use unique and complex passwords
Many people use easy passwords to access their online services. Even worse: some still use the same password for everyone! Considering the amount of data leaks that occur on the internet, it goes without saying how risky it is to do this, right?
Never use the same password for more than one digital service, even if it is difficult (or practically impossible) to guess. Enter special characters, uppercase and lowercase letters, and numbers to strengthen security. Additionally, the more characters a password has, the harder it is to crack.
An excellent way to avoid having to deal with several different passwords at the same time is to use a password manager: it is an app that stores all your passwords encrypted, so you only need to know the master password for your password vault. .
These applications usually have password generator mechanisms: this way, not even you will know what password is used to access their services.
Google has a free password management. However, there are other even more robust paid solutions to guarantee your privacy online.
Use two-factor authentication (2FA)
You've probably heard about this security step: it's an application that generates numeric codes, renewed every 60 seconds. The correct code must be entered after validating the application password, acting as an additional layer of protection.
In some services, 2FA is done via SMS: so always keep your contact information up to date. If you lose access to your phone number, you will have to contact the service support to remove authentication – which requires some bureaucracy and can take several days to complete.
By default, Google Authenticator and Authy are the most popular apps for this purpose. There are several other solutions and some of them were created specifically to use certain applications.
Install a security app
Taking care of your online privacy without installing a good antivirus/antimalware application is a very complicated task. Fishing attacks or threats that could leak all your information are much more present on the network than you might think!
There are very solid free solutions for smartphones, such as Kaspersky and the Avira, two giants of online security and privacy. However, their respective paid versions release all their features – and it’s not expensive!
Security software for mobile devices is generally quite inexpensive. Depending on the plan you choose, they can be installed on several devices at the same time.
Additional features to protect your online privacy, such as blocking unwanted cookies, robust password generators and browser plug-ins are just a few examples of what is present in its premium versions. Don’t see this as an expense, but rather as an investment!
Use a more private browser
Google Chrome comes by default on all Android smartphones. Although it is quite popular and functional, it is one of the applications that absorbs the most information from users through telemetry!
Telemetry is a set of technologies integrated into software that aim to understand the usage patterns of its users. To do so, they collect various types of data; in the case of Chrome, there are many.
Tor, Brave, Firefox and Edge are among the most private browsers on the market, as they collect little (or almost no) information from their users. It might be a great idea to try them out: some of them have really nice extra features that Chrome for mobile doesn't support!
Be careful what you share your location with
Many apps ask for access to your location the first time they are opened: but is this really necessary? Most of the time, no.
Except for really specific cases, like Google Maps, Uber and many other urban mobility apps, most apps simply don't need to know where you are at all times.
Therefore, disable your location for applications that do not need this information to function correctly: if possible, disable GPS completely when it is not necessary!
Download files from trusted sources
Avoid downloading applications that are not in the official stores of their respective operating systems as much as possible. The reason for this is that both Google and Apple check the files that are uploaded to their stores before they are made available for download; this does not occur if the software comes from external sources.
If you are infected, you may suffer from leaks of passwords, personal data (full name, addresses and various documents), credit cards, etc. Needless to say, how dangerous and complicated it would be to clean up this mess, right?
And you – are you taking care of your online security?
