Nowadays, people are very fond of using social media as a means to interact with
others and also to develop the business. Website social media has become a powerful suggestion. People already know the power of social media and its presence has been building a strong community. However, social media has been misused for evil things. What is social media? How to protect your identity from criminals online?
Social Media
What is social media? Social media is online media where people can participate and share them online. This can be done via the web or mobile technology and interactive.
Some forms of social media such as forums, blogs, microblogging, wikis, podcasts, video, social networking and social bookmarking. Here are a few examples of well-known social media:
Blog / Microblog
Example: Twitter, Blogger, Wordpress
Wiki
Example: Wikipedia
Forum
Example: Kaskus
Video
Example: Youtube
Photo
Examples: Flickr, Picasa
Social networking
Example: Facebook
Social bookmarking
Example: Digg, Delicious, Reddit, Lintasberita
Virtual game worlds
Example: World of Warcraft
Virtual social worlds
Example: Second Life
Wary Using Social Media
In all of these social media, you are required to register first. Each registrant will not be verified first whether all data entered is correct or not. Many people make a fake profile as others, but with the evil purpose. In other words, social media has no accountability.
Then you'll open yourself to the community from all over the world. Bad and dangerous thing that can happen is the data and habits will be abused in cyberspace. What to do to protect your social media accounts from online criminals?
The identity of the hijackers is abusing social media to damage the profile and reputation of others. Another way is to steal your identity by doing a little survey about you. It can even destroy one's professional career can be stressful and even other people.
Once the criminals managed to hijack your identity, they will try to cheat your friends. Some cases, the criminals asked to send money from your friends on behalf of yourself. Even some threatening to destroy your reputation if not paid. They can be personal profits from your profile that have been hijacked.
Protect Yourself on Social Media
The easiest way to protect yourself is to know the social media habits of online criminals. Many Internet threats that occur in the online world. Here are some of their habits.
Plowing Email
The easiest way is by online criminals hijack your email address. Then they will log into social media sites by using your email and use the facilities "Forgot Password" to get the password sent to your email.
Solution: Always secure your email. One of the easiest ways is always regularly change your email password. Then if you start receiving email password requests reimbursement of social media websites, and change email alert immediately on social media.
Investigate Your Life
Another method often used is to guess your password by investigating yourself or your activities. Many people have put as much as possible, including personal things in their profile. This is an opportunity for criminals to gather information about you. It is as simple as entering your partner's name, date of birth, place of birth and other interesting things from your profile as a basis for guessing the password.
Solution: Do not use things that are easy to guess as your password. Use a combination that is difficult to guess your password. The best way is to combine capital letters, lowercase letters and numbers in your password.
Spyware
An Internet criminals usually will send you an interesting program or send the link to download the program good. Even email seems to come from your own friends. But behind the program, there is a malicious program called a keylogger. This program will make everything you type is sent to the criminals. They will easily know your username and password to log into the social media website.
Solution: Do not click on any links that look alien and sent to your email, which seems especially interesting. Use antivirus and Internet security programs that have been known to check email content or links. Enable security features in your Internet browser and always use the latest Internet browser is now available for free.
Phishing
Usually the criminals they send junk email that contains a link or links to other websites that are similar and you will be logged into the website "email" is false, so that the user and password are stored hijackers. For example, they send false notifications to update your data and ask you to immediately login by clicking the link sent in email.
Solution: Do not click on any links that look familiar and be emailed to you for example to update your data. The safest way is to always type the website address email provider like mail.yahoo.com or www.gmail.com directly in your browser's address box. Then login in the normal manner on the website.
Another way to secure your identity on the Internet is as follows:
Use a combination that is hard for a password, which is a combination of uppercase, lowercase and numbers.
Upon login, select https instead of http if there is an option to use https.
Do not click on suspicious links, even from his own friends who do not normally send a link.
If someone sends a message to your account, always investigate request.
If there is a choice to make inquiries as assistance for the recovery of forgotten account password, use the questions and answers that are difficult for others to guess.
Avoid access to social media websites on a computer that is not secured, especially in the cafe that reputation and the security system is not good.
