Posts in category: Tips

Since there are so many threats of security breaches happening around the world all the days, we should learn carefully to watch out our own online privacy and security. One of the main channels that snoopers use to steal the personal data is through messaging services. Therefore, communication with end-to-end encryption becomes an essential need for everyone to protect self’s online privacy especially on mobile devices. Today we are going to recommend some best mobile encrypted messaging apps in 2020 that can effectively stop people from snooping on your conversations and protect your privacy from being invaded. Here are 7 best messaging apps that you can definitely feel safe to use without any concern.

Whatsapp

• Free for supported operating system: Android, iOS, macOS, Windows
• A full featured instant messenger with voice messages, photos and documents sharing, face-to-face video calls, location sharing, group chats and group conference calls up to 8 people
• Features to customize appearance and notifications
• Immense popularity uses this messaging apps even included your contacts as well
• Allowed to access and sync the conversations from multiple devices at the same time

Signal

• Free for supported operating system: Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, Linux
• Leading open source end-to-end encryption technology is used
• Featured with voice messages, photos and documents sharing, crystal-clear video calls and group chats
• Messages can be self-destructed after a certain amount of time for privacy and data clean out

Wickr Me

• Free for supported operating system: Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, Linux
• Featured with voice messages, photos and documents sharing, screen sharing, location sharing and online status
• Notification on screenshot detection from others
• No limits on the types of sending documents
• Messages can be self-destructed after a customized time period for privacy and data clean out

Telegram

• Free for supported operating system: Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, Linux
• Allowed to access and sync the conversations from multiple devices at the same time
• Messages can be self-destructed after a certain amount of time for privacy and data clean out
• No limits on the types of sending documents and neither the size of medias and chats

Threema

• Supported operating system: Android, iOS, Web (Cost: approximate $2.99)
• Featured with voice messages, photos and documents sharing, location sharing and crystal-clear voice calls
• No phone number or email address required for registration
• Generates a random sequence of characters (Threeman ID) for anonymous messaging
• Decentralized storage system; therefore, no data is stored on its server

Viber

• Free for supported operating system: Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, Linux
• Featured with voice messages, photos and videos sharing, HD-quality video calls and group chats with unlimited members
• Easily sync and transfer calls from mobile device to computer

Dust

• Free for supported operating system: Android, iOS
• Notification on screenshot detection from others
• Messages can be set to self-destruct after being read or within 24 hours

Learn more about why you need encrypted messaging for your bookie business here.

Image by Jan Alexander from Pixabay

You probably think that you have your email account well protected or you think it is just an email account not a bank account and there is nothing you should worry about. However, there is actually so much personal information involved to your emails and your data will become vulnerable and be stolen if your account is hacked. Besides, once your account got hijacked, not only you but also your contacts will have the same risk of being scammed. For instance, you would find yourself locked out of your own account and your friends or family will receive any kind of fake emails sent on your behalf to deceive them for money emergency or to trick them on giving out more personal data. Now keep reading to learn what you should do immediately if your email account has been hacked. Here are some recommendations that can help you to reduce the damages and keep your data safe as much as you can.

Change your passwords immediately:

If you suspect that someone is using your email account, you should change it and create a strong password immediately for the replacement. However, email account password is not the only one you need to change up and you should change the passwords for all other sites as well in order to prevent more harms from data leaking. 

Recover back your account:

In most of the cases when the email account got hacked, users can no longer login their account with the old passwords. Therefore, many famous email providers like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are designed to have the special section of account recovery for people whose account got compromised so they can recover back their account by answering some security question.

Report the incident to your email provider:

Contact and report the incident to your email provider’s security team is another highly important step to do. That’s because they got the chance to use such information to find out any criminal pattern behind, and then work with local law enforcement team in order to catch the people who did it.        

Alert your family and friends:

Remember to inform the people you know such as your family, friends and acquaintances that your email has been hacked in case that they might be receiving emails from your account asking for money or personal data. Therefore, it’s necessary to protect your contacts from being scammed and you should also tell them not to open any files from your hijacked account and even run a security scan to detect any possible malware.

Double check the account setting:

In case that you can still use your old passwords to login your email account but it’s certainly hacked by some others. You should definitely go to your email account and double check on some settings to ensure your information is still safe. For example, your signature wasn’t changed by the hacker or the forwarding policies haven’t altered to automatically forward the emails received from banks or other important entities.

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

You can hear the news everyday about a data breach that could happen anywhere, even involving a place or person you know. Although you can be a very careful person, you would still have the risk of becoming a victim of identity theft any moment. Besides, having your data compromised doesn’t actually mean that your identity is stolen but it can be any other aspects that can cause any kind of damage to your privacy. Therefore, you should be extra vigilant about all your actions because even a normal staff in a place where you frequently visit could secretly snap a photo of your credit card.

This is why you should keep yourself alerted all the time so scammers or people with bad intention cannot obtain any chance to deceive you. Now this article is here to guide and help you to prepare yourself with some questions that you should always keep in your mind so you can avoid the tragedy from having personal sensitive data stolen.

These are the questions that you should automatically ask yourself for security…

to double check with the doubts you may have when someone uses any kinds of means to contact you.

• Is the person who contacted me is truly from the trustful entity?
• Is it a well-known entity?
• Is the incoming contact source correct? (with the correspondent phone number or with correctly spelt email address)
• Where can I find more details to prove the identity of contactor?
• Why do they contact me at this moment?
• Is it a proper / rational work time to contact me?
• What might be the purpose of the contact?
• Is the requested information necessary and fits with the purpose?
• Do I really need to give out this information?
• Should I click on the provided link?
• Do I really need to open the attachment included in the email?
• Is the website reliable to visit?

To conclude, it’s totally fine to suspect the reliability and credibility of anyone who tries to get information from you because this is the only way how you protect your own security. Besides, always remember that do not easily give out your personal information if you don’t want to become the next victim. Check on more tips to learn how to prevent identity theft effectively.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Identity theft has become a common threat everywhere and it can cause you a huge loss if you don’t treat it seriously. In other words, you may be the next victim if you have no idea how to prevent it from happening. Therefore, we want to give you some simple tips that you can start doing in your daily life easily and then effectively learn how to protect your own security and prevent any kind of identity theft.

However, your identity can be stolen by digital or non-digital means anytime and anywhere. Here are the tips that can help you protect your data:

Enhance your security through passwords:

Actually, the very first step that you should do is to create the strong passwords and even use a password manager in order to secure all your accounts. Click on each link to learn more details about How To Create Strong Passwords and What Are The Best Password Managers that we recommend. Besides, it’s also important to have good habits on managing your passwords for your own data protection. By doing these, you are able to enhance your data security to avoid the identity theft.

Be sharp with received emails:

There are many scams and frauds attacking by the means of emails. The scammers usually send out fake emails which may contain links to trick people to insert their passwords or any personal sensitive data. In addition, those emails can also include some malicious attachments that contain Trojan Horse to track your activities and even hack your account.

Never click on any unknown links:

When you navigate the websites through Internet, you should be careful on any pages you visit. Have in mind that it’s important to only access the website with HTTPS protection and never clink on any unknown links which can cause damages to your online security.

Install anti-virus software:

It’s necessary to install the anti-virus software because it can filter all your incoming and outcoming activities to protect your devices. Therefore, there is no intended party can intrude the system and steal your precious information.

Always run the latest update:

Make sure that your devices are always running the latest versions of updates. In fact, this is a totally essential step for you to ensure the operating system is running efficiently and supporting with the proper security patches.

Shred the paper anywhere you go:

Identity theft doesn’t always happen digitally and your data can be at risk even with the trash you tossed out. For example: if you don’t shred your bank account receipt after withdrawing the money and directly throw it away to the trash can, professional identity thieves know where to get your information and reuse it. As a result, your identity becomes vulnerable and exposed to the public although you think you just threw out a piece of paper to the garbage can.

Format the devices:

Always remember to clean out your personal information and format the devices (computers, smartphones or tablets) before changing to the new one. This is because your data still remains in the devices and easy for anybody to get access to it if you don’t take care of the cleaning process.  

Image by CeruleanSon from Pixabay