How to Keep Your Data Safe When Spending Money Online

Data security experts regularly warn us about keeping our data safe when it comes to our online accounts and how we spend money on the internet. It’s a genuine concern that through poor security, you’ll be hacked, leaving personal information such as your name, email address and more at risk. If one account is hacked, this could have ramifications, resulting in other accounts being compromised.

But keeping your data safe is about much more than creating a strong password full of numbers, symbols and hard to remember characters. There are lots of other methods that you can employ when it comes to keeping your data safe and we have detailed some of these below.

Don’t Fall for Social Phishing Scams

One widely known form of gaining illegitimate access to someone’s account is through email phishing. This is when someone sends you a bogus email, encouraging you to download a malware file or click a link which results in the original sender of the email gathering your information. But a rising threat is that of social phishing scams. This can be defined as a phishing scam that uses social engineering techniques in order to glean information about you. For example, someone may ask you questions to learn your mother’s maiden name, your hometown and the name of your first pet, all of which are common account security questions. These social phishing attempts may be performed on social media, so you’ll want to stay mindful of this.

Know How to Identify a Reputable Site

Another way to keep your data safe is simply to stick to reputable websites that can easily be identified as trustworthy. It can be difficult especially in this age of discounts and free shipping, but that only makes it more important to know where you’re shopping. Online betting sites offer a guideline in what to look for. There are lots of different betting sites but some may be considered to be “best” site for something, e.g if they offer secure deposit and withdrawal methods like Interac and PayPal. Likewise, customers vouch for their deals, including no-risk offers and no deposit bonuses, which is proof that these sites are to be trusted.

Enable Two-Factor Authentication

Our final data security tip is to enable two-factor authentication on any accounts or platforms where this security feature is available. It’s something you should enable at any given chance, as it means that someone attempting to log-in to your account from a new device or an unrecognized or unauthorized IP address will be unable to without using a special code which has been provided to you. There’s also SMS authentication in which you get a text which you must reply to confirm (or deny) the log-in attempt.

Data security is something that we should all take seriously. While you may not have a degree in IT security, these tips may help you keep your data safe.