The rise of the internet has completely revolutionized the way we experience life. From staying in touch with friends, communicating with colleagues, shopping online, managing bank accounts, researching holiday destinations and more, the world wide web has well and truly made its mark on our lives. That said, it’s not quite as secure as we might like to believe. In order to ensure a safe and intrusive free experience it’s important to take all the necessary precautions. Here’s how:

Understand encryption

Not just for geeks and mathematicians, encryption is a critical part of protecting emails and document files. Encryption software such as GPG for Mail, TruCrypt and FileVault can be used to encrypt the hard drive of a computer and scramble data.

Go incognito

If you’d rather keep your browsing history pirate and free from cookies always use an incognito window. This will protect you against the brazen efforts of commercial companies to use your browsing behavior to their advantage.

Don’t save log in details/passwords

While it can be tempting to say ‘yes’ when banks, email portals and online shopping accounts ask you if you want to save your information or stay logged in, this can be seriously counterproductive to your online identity security. If someone was to steal your device all they’d need to do to access your personal information would be to check your browsing history and use your saved user names/passwords to hack into your accounts.

Keep social media accounts private

You’d be amazed at the amount of personal information a hacker can gain simply from stalking an unsecure social media account. Take the time to review you security settings and ensure that only friends can view private information.

Switch off remote connections when not in use

When you’re not using remote connections such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth switch them off to avoid leaving access open to cyber criminals. They can use these connections to hack into your devices, covertly access your information and ultimately, steal your identity.

These may seem like relatively simple habits to break but at the end of the day, they serve as serious ammunition against digital crooks.