Virtual privacy is the most crucial issue in the digital world. Keeping your data, personal identity and communication secure and confidential is difficult.

Everyone is using digital platforms and sharing a lot about their personal lives and interacting with people without thinking much about the protection against unwanted intrusion and data manipulation.

Cyber crime is on rise nowadays which is the result of an increase in various factors. Some of them are mentioned below

Phishing: Scammer tricks someone to give away their personal information or sensitive data, like their bank details, credit card details or password impersonating a legitimate institution. The scammer usually contacts through email, telephone, or text messages.

They lure by urgent messages or lucrative offers to trap the victim. When you open the link given in email, text or message, it opens to a fake website which looks the same as a legitimate one and asks you to login to it. Once you login your account is hacked.

Cyber stalking: It's harassing or stalking someone online by using technology and keeping oneself anonymous. They target vulnerable people by sending inappropriate, threatening or disturbing messages or images. They will threaten or blackmail the victim to make them fearful, ashamed or disturbed.

Mobile malware: Visiting compromised websites, downloading third party websites by clicking links provided by email or message and downloading apps which are compromised can steal your information through your browser.
Never click on advertisements which look doubtful .

Remote access Trojans: This allows the attacker to have access to your contacts, cameras, log GPS and sensitive information through your mobile device once you download compromised aap. Always an app.

Wifi interceptions: Always be aware when using public WiFi which are insecure and exposes you to the risk of being attacked and injection of malware.

Ransomware: It's one of the most dangerous cyber security threats. In it the attacker permanently blocks the access to the victims account by hijacking it. They demand a large amount of ransom to release it. Sometimes they damage important files too. It happens with the accounts of large institutions too i.e banks or government websites etc

Denial of service: The attacker renders the network to a website and denies service to its user making it unavailable. It's one of the malicious cyber attacks. It is done by increasing the fake traffic to the targeted website until original traffic is disrupted.

These crime rates are increasing everyday and damaging individuals and organisations causing financial losses, breach of sensitive data and even risks public safety. It is crucial to get informed and take protective measures to combat these cyber attacks.

How to stay safe?

• You need to remember a legitimate institute will never ask for your private information
• Never give your private information to anyone
• Never click on suspicious link
• When downloading an app, look carefully at what you are allowing access to.
• Regularly backup your data
• Use complicated and different passwords on every account or device
• Manage your privacy settings on your social media platforms to limit access
• Stay educated to latest cyber attacks trends
• Once you become victim of cyber crime you must report it immediately to the concerned authorities

These are the precautions which can significantly reduce your risk of becoming a victim of cyber attacks and keep you safe. Stay safe and happy surfing.

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This is prompt post for inLeo link monthly posts.