Today, 5th February is the safer internet day. The primary aim of this day is to advance the safe and positive use of digital technology for children and young people. Moreover, it promotes the conversation over this issue. So let us discuss a few ideas.The digital medium is the place where we live our today. It has become our world. However, as compare to the physical world to this world and its rules are unfamiliar to us. Also, adding to that with the advent of social media we are putting our lives, every detail of it in and at the domain of social media. We are then letting governments, industrial lords, political parties, snoops, and the society to judge, to see and monitor us. We, the fragile, vulnerable us, do not have any other option but to watch our freedom, privacy vanishing.
Do we not have anything to save ourselves? Ta Da! Here are some basic ideas are the following which you can try to follow in your everyday life to keep yourself safe in the digital world.
Use unique passphrases
Use passphrases instead of passwords.Passwords are easy to break as well as easy to copy so instead of using “Frank” (a name) or “Achinpur60”(a part of your address), use passphrases like “DiscountDangerDumpster”. It is easy to remember and hard to break. You can assemble 2 more languages (it is easy for us, Indians, right?). I used diceware to generate that password. Moreover, by unique what I mean is that do not use the SAME PASSWORD EVERYWHERE. I can feel how difficult, tedious, impossible it is for you to remember all the lengthy, difficult passphrases (now not passwords remember!) for all your accounts. However, nothing can be done with this. If someone can get your passphrase for one account, he will be able to all of them. Unique passphrases help a lot in this case.
Use password managers
To solve your above-mentioned problem of remembering long passphrases you have a magic thing called password manager. Just move your wand (read mouse) once, and you can find your long passphrases safely protected in their safe vaults. There are many different password managers LastPass, KeePassXC, etc. If you want to know more about this, please read it here.
Do not leave your device (computer, phone, etc) unlocked
My 2 year old once had typed some not so kind words (thanks to autocorrect) to my in-laws and the lovely consequence it brought still shivers me. But thankfully so it was not with someone, having the good technical knowledge and not so good intention, who could cause much greater damage if unlucky then irrecoverable damage than this. So please do not leave your device unlocked.
Do not share your password or your device with anyone
The similar kinds of danger, as aforementioned it poses if you share your password with anyone.
Do block your webcam and phone’s camera
It is now a well-known fact that attackers are spying on us through our web cameras. They are deceiving users by installing webcam spyware. Many of us may think “oh we are safe, our device has indicator lights, so we will be knowing when and if there is any video recording happening.” It is very much possible to disable the activity light by changing the configurations and software hacks. So even if there is no light, your video can very well be taken.
Do not ignore security updates
Most of the time when a security update notification pops up in the morning we very smoothly ignore it for our morning dose of news or checking our social media feed. However, that is the most irresponsible thing you want to do in your day. It may be last chance to secure yourself from the future danger. Mainer times the cyber attackers take advantage of your old, outdated software and attack you through it. It may be your old PDF reader, web browser or your operating system. So, this the most primary thing to your digital security lesson 101 is to keep your software up to date.
Acquire some basic knowledge about your machine
I know (trust me I have passed the phase) please acquire some basic knowledge about your machine, eg which version of operating system you are using, the other software on your machine and their version number. If and when they require any updates or not.
Do not download random websites from the internet.
Do not download random websites from the internet they might contain malware, virus. It might not only affect your machine but all the devices in the network. So, please check the website you are downloading from.
Do not click any random links
The same caution as above goes for this also. Do not click on the random URLs you receive over email or social media sites.
Use two-factor authentication
Two-factor authentication merely is two steps of validation. It adds an extra layer of security in and for your device. In 2FA the user needs to put two passwords instead of one. It is advisable that you have your 2FA installed on your mobile phone, or even better, use a hardware token like Yubikey. So that if someone wants to hack your account, then they have to get hold of both password and the phone.
Use Tor network
Tor Project is the most trusted and proposed project to remain private, to retain your anonymity. Tor is defined as “free software and an open network that helps you defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities, and relationships, and state security.” in their website. Have a look at this to know more.
Take proper legal action
If something terrible happens to you online, please visit the local cyber crime department and lodge a formal complaint there. The local police stations do not deal with the matter related to cyber crimes. So you might directly want to go to the appropriate cyber security cell. If you do not have any idea that where is it, what to do there etc. You go to your Local Police Station take their advice, the information you need and then go the cyber security cell.
Learn GPG encryption
It is always suggested to know and learn GPG, Gnu Privacy Guard if you are up to that level of learning technical things. It is a bit difficult, but, surely a very useful tool to keep your privacy secured.
The steps I mentioned above may sound "too much" to maintain. But let us pretend that your house is your device and password is key to enter there. You normally follow all possible way to keep your house keys safe so the same rules apply here also. The rules are nothing but an habit,like getting up in the morning, it seems difficult for first few times but after that it is organic and normal as it can be. So, build the habbit of keeping safe, only using these tools will not offer you the desired results you need.
Hope you have a happy, safe life in the digital world.