How to Keep Your Financial & Personal Information Safe in 2022?
In this digital age, most of our personal and financial needs are met right from the comfort of our homes. Be it online banking, shopping, paying bills, or connecting with our loved ones abroad, interest has made everything hassle-free. However, this also comes with the cost of data privacy and protection. All these amenities have made it more convenient for cybercriminals to steal your financial and personal information. Although most companies are obliged to comply with data protection laws like GDPR which ensures consumer data privacy by accepting a data erasure request and other rights to data privacy, it’s still important for you to be cautious about your digital footprint.
Therefore, we have mentioned several data protection tips in this article that will help you keep your financial and personal information safe in 2022. Read on!
1. Don’t Send Sensitive Data by Emails
Whether they are documents containing sensitive information related to your company or your personal information like your social security number, you shouldn’t use email to send confidential data as it may lead to identity theft and other major problems. Most email services are not encrypted, therefore, you can’t trust them with your confidential data. Think of it as sending an important piece of information via mail and the mailman can easily have access to it. Therefore, it’s better to use a secure file-sharing software tool like OneDrive, Dropbox, Apple iCloud Drive, FileWhopper, etc., to prevent any unauthorized party from accessing your private data.
2. Install VPN
Do you actively use public networks to work on your laptop in cafes or even to surf the internet on your phone? If yes, it’s vital that you install a VPN on your smart devices to stay protected from cyber offenders. Using public Wi-Fi exposes you to the risk of getting hacked and this means losing your financial and personal information to cybercriminals. A VPN conceals your IP address to obstruct hackers from gaining access to your sensitive information. Therefore, using a VPN with a public internet connection will keep you safe.
3. Create Strong Passwords and Use Multi-Factor Authentication
Your passwords are a key to all your personal and financial information for cybercriminals. Hence, you should create and use strong passwords for your accounts such as a mix of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols. Never use the same password for all accounts. If it’s hard for you to memorize your passwords, you should use a trusted password manager rather than saving all your passwords in the notes app of your phone. Moreover, multi-factor authentication works as an additional security measure. If someone else wants to access your account using your password, you will be notified immediately, and they won’t have the access to the passcode.
4. Regularly Update Your Browser and Operating System
If you have the habit of ignoring the update notifications of your web browser, antivirus software, or even operating system, it’s time to let go of this in 2022. These updates come with better features, and they bridge functionality gaps and improve the performance of the app/system by fixing bugs. Hence, you should immediately update them, so they are able to prevent your device from hackers and any other potential security threats.
Did this article help you? If so, please tell me in a comment what do you think about it.
Don’t miss any of our future video tutorials, follow us on Youtube. Like us on Facebook. Join our Best Deals Telegram Channel. Join our Android TV Box Firmware Updates Telegram Channel. Subscribe now to our newsletter.
