SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES
Are You Safe?
How To Be Safe From Social Networking Sites?
Social Networking websites allow people to connect and communicate with others. People use social networking to keep in touch with friends, family and to meet new people they haven’t met in the real world. Facebook, Instagram, E-mail, Whatsapp, are a few examples.
You may also have heard about some hackers in the news, about child abusers making contact with people online or some people themselves using the sites to bully and target others. However, people can protect themselves and behave properly when using social networking sites – if they know how to.
In this flyer I will be sharing some tips to be safe and what to do if you are targeted.
Each website is different. But, I will talk about Facebook, Whats app, Instagram, E-mails and Skype. Most of these have the same ways to be safe.
Think About Who You Add; It’s not all about how many friends you have. Remember when you accept someones request, you give away a lot of personal information. This includes, posts, photographs and messages that you write about yourself. You can delete friends at any time, so when your free check your list and think about who you really want accessing your information. Check your settings, Put It On Private; Go to settings and put your profile on private and so that it can just be seen by your friends. This way no one else can access your profile and steal information and there are less chances of your page getting hacked. Be Smart about your Passwords; Try not to use the same passwords on all your accounts. Check from where you log in and remember to sign out before leaving your PC or device. Make strong passwords. Be Careful of What You Say; Don't post very personal stuff on to your wall too often and before posting anything think if you really want it to be public. Don't click on things that look very appealing as they could be hacks.
Privacy Settings; there are privacy settings on your instagram settings. Make sure that is on so that no stranger can look at you profile and share and mess around with your information and pictures. Do not approve following requests if the person is not a friend and do not follow anyone if you don't know them.
Profile Appearance; think about what picture you post and don't post pictures that are not appropriate. think before posting any picture as they can be seen by anybody if your privacy settings aren't on.
Following and Followers; With the Privacy Settings on, people can't follow you without your approval. You can also block someone if you’ve accepted them.
Skype
Put Your Account On Private; Open Skype and click on the Tools/ Skype preferences, then click the Options button and you will find the Privacy button. Here you can set your preferences for receiving requests. Make sure you accept requests of only your friends and ignore the requests from those people you don't know.
Setting your Skype profile is easy; Your profile acts as your visitor card to millions of other people on Skype. You can add your birthday, gender and others all of which help other people find you. Your email address is stored by skype and not shown to anyone else. It is used only to allow friends and family to search for you in the directory. Think before you start filling in your profiles. Do not put details in your profile that you do not want to be publicly available. You do not have to fill in your profile if you do not want to. You can change your profile at any time.
Lock WhatsApp; You can lock this by going to settings and then to privacy and set a pin for whatsapp. This will prevent strangers/unwanted people who have your phone from reading your messages and will also prevent it from being hacked. Restrict access to profile picture; You can do this by sharing it to “contacts only” in the Privacy settings. Be careful what you talk about;Think before you message family/friends with any form of personal information like addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and never send your bank, or credit card details, or your passport or other identification details.
Gmail
Keep the 'Always Use https' option ON ;
Using https improves the security of your accounts, especially when you are using a public network. When your gmail account uses https, no one can get in to your account and steal your login information or email contents. https: Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure. Choose A Unique Security Question;One of the weak links to password security is the password security question. If you post a very simple question, chances are that a person who has the information about you can guess the answer. So make sure you choose a unique security question, to which only you would know the answer. Beware Of Spam Mails; Do Not Click on mails that look to good to be true because they probably aren't. Those emails could install viruses to your computer take away personal information and do a lot more than you think. Delete messages that come from strangers and disable your account if you think if it has been hacked.