How to Protect Yourself From Hacking and Personal Data Leakage | Antivirus Software

 1. What happened?

 For advice on protecting personal data on the Internet, we turned to Evgeny Pitolin, Managing Director of Central Asia and Mongolia.

Hacker attacks have become commonplace these days. Experts confirm that no one is protected from hacking e-mail, social media accounts, messengers, or software infection with viruses. Attackers can use stolen data to blackmail, scam, or steal funds from bank accounts.

2. How to protect yourself from email hacking and letter theft?

No postal service can ensure 100% security of your correspondence. The easiest way to protect yourself is to use more complex passwords for your accounts. Surprisingly, in this age of cyber threats, the most popular passwords are still numbers from 1 to 8 or the birthdays of relatives. You should be more responsible when choosing a password. Also, don't use the same password on different sites. An additional security measure is two-step authentication. In any mail service, you can configure this function. After setting it up, when you enter your account, you will be asked not only for a password but also for a code that will be sent to your number by SMS.

On open networks, traffic is not encrypted and can be intercepted relatively easily. Especially valuable papers, such as ID scans, are best sent in a password-protected archive. For sending sensitive data related to your work and business, it is better not to use a free mailbox. For this, there are corporate addresses and special applications that encrypt messages. If you do not have this, you can use anonymous mail, the address that you do not use to register on sites and on social networks.

3. How can I avoid getting a virus through email?

The first and easiest way to protect yourself from them is to be more attentive to incoming messages. It is better to send suspicious letters directly to spam. Before you view or download attachments in an email, you should make sure that the sender actually sent them to you.

4. How to secure your bank card details when using online services and making purchases over the Internet?

Bank cards have become a universal method of paying for services on the Internet. We connect them to online stores, couponers, ticketing, or taxi services. This increases the risk of using card data to steal funds from accounts. The easiest way of such theft is fake websites of well-known online stores and online services. Their address and appearance may practically not differ from the real ones. If you receive an email about awesome iPhone 7 discounts on the website of a famous store, do not rush to make a purchase. This may be just a skillful copy created by scammers to find out your card details. It is better to go to this site using another link and check if there really is a similar offer.

In general, you should check carefully which site you are making a purchase on. If it was one-time, you can delete your data from the resource.

Another way to protect your funds is to use a virtual card for online purchases. Any bank provides a similar service. Through online banking services, you can transfer the amount required for a purchase to it. In this way, you can protect the data of the card linked to the main account.

5. Is there a secure cloud service for storing and backing up your photos and documents?

There are no completely secure cloud services. The servers of almost all large companies have been hacked and leaked user data at least once. When choosing a cloud service, it is better to focus on the one that has already been hacked before. Most likely, the company learned from this and improved security measures. In addition, you should pay attention to what antivirus software your storage provider uses to check the downloaded files. Some cloud storage is not protected by antivirus at all.

6. Can I protect my social media account from hacking?

Social media hacking epidemics are common. You receive a message from a friend, you follow the link - and now your account has been hacked, and through it, spam messages are sent to other users. In addition, account hacking can be used to scam and extort money from your family and friends. To avoid this, you should be more careful about incoming messages. If you receive a message from a friend who hasn't written anything for many months, you should be suspicious of him and you should definitely not open any third-party links. It is better to ignore all suspicious messages from strangers.

As with mail, you should come up with more complex passwords for your account. Do not use the same password for social networks and mail.

7. Can my personal data be stolen without hacking accounts and mail?

Easy. To do this, it is enough to carefully study your page on social networks. In social networks, we talk about our place of work, leisure, preferences, and habits. All this can be used by intruders against us.

Many people post photos of their passports, visas, air tickets on social networks. Scammers and thieves monitor this information. For example, a new type of burglar has appeared. They select victims based on photos with a hashtag or airport geolocation. Based on the geolocation data in the posts posted earlier, you can also calculate its address.

8. How do I know if my computer or mobile device is infected with a virus that can steal personal data?

A common method of stealing personal data is virus software. For example, there is a malicious Trojan that installs on your smartphone and regularly takes screenshots from the screen, sending them to the attacker. To understand that something is wrong with your device, just take a closer look at it. If the smartphone's charge starts to be consumed faster, it periodically overheats, and some applications start spontaneously, you should pay attention to this and diagnose the device. Malware may be the cause. Some viruses can skillfully hide and show no signs of their presence. To protect yourself, it is better to use reliable antivirus software and regularly check your device or computer.

9. How can I protect my personal data if my device is infected with a virus?

If you suspect that your device is infected, you should log into your accounts from another computer or device and change your passwords. If you paid for services on the Internet from an infected device, it is better to close your bank card for Internet transactions. After that, you can install a reliable antivirus and clean the device from suspicious programs. In the future, it should be regularly diagnosed.