Internet Safety Tips

No other posts in this topic please except for safety tips. Post discussion here topic.php?t=20748

Ok some simple ones first.

Do not use public WiFi to check your bank balance or access anything that requires a password. Use your own data, 3g/4g

Public WiFi is any WiFi that is not your own.

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Email scams are making a big return, especially in business. DO NOT send money to anyone, even if the email came from a relative. Emails are being intercepted.

Example: a woman received an email from her boss to pay a legit company and one they work with. She paid the 4 million pound.

The email was from hackers, they never got any of it back.

A woman sent all her house sale money to her solicitor to buy her new house. The email had been intercepted with the bank details and the details changed.
She never got any of it back.

If in doubt, ring and ask before. Or send £1 first and ring to see if they got it.

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An email from PayPal or anything else that requires a log in. Do not under any circumstances click anything on the email.
For this example.
Go to paypals website and log in and check if indeed there is a notification on your account.

Always always always go the long way around.

never respond directly to a text message, phone call or email. Log onto your bank accounts etc from a recognised web address usually starting with HTTPS://

The problem with public WiFi

Only really a problem when it’s fake, which is easily done. So let’s say I’m in my hotel lobby. They have free WiFi, called ‘Aparthotel123’. That’s its SSID, or router name to you and me. And say a malicious attacker, who could well be sitting in the lobby or outside in his car with his laptop sets up a WiFi hotspot and calls it ‘Aparthotel123’. So now his laptop is a router. I connect to Aparthotel, but which router do I connect to, the hotel”s or the hacker’s? There is no easy way to tell. If the attackers signal is stronger, I will almost certainly have connected to his. This is known as an evil twin attack.

Now the attacker can see my potentially sensitive data. This could include passwords and logon credentials to banking, email, Facebook etc. This is a man in the middle attack and exposes me to great risk. It doesn’t have to be a laptop. A fake WiFi access point can even be set up on a phone. If you can set up a hotspot on your phone then you can set one up in minutes to mimic the public WiFi where you are and you’ll have unsuspecting guests connecting to you in no time.

How to avoid

Don’t connect to public WiFi is the safest way. But if f you must, use a VPN. It will help protect you by encrypting your traffic.

Ally has a good link up about that Tommy. I’m sure he’ll put it up again. But the basic idea is that you get a VPN subscription. Your internet access now goes through your VPN provider. They encrypt everything and keep you anonymous from unscrupulous attackers.

That’s a very simplified explanation. But it is simple to set up. Typically you download the VPN app onto your devices, phone laptop etc. and your devices access the internet through it. You have the likes of Nord VPN, Express VPN, Tunnelbear, and many other providers, too many to keep up with. You can try for free or you can use the likes of Tunnelbbear for free all year round up to 500MB per month, that’s what I’m currently doing. I only switch it on if I’m on public WiFi.

And btw, Black Friday is coming up. VPN providers very often do a really cheap lifetime deal on Black Friday.

Bloody passwords, password for this, password for that, another password and another and another and another....

If your password is less than 10 digits, it's crap.

All your passwords should look something like this *t%J->hy^54dhbN - why? well if your password is your date of birth.......... ok who went.. "how the feck did he know that?" then its rubbish and easily hacked, or easily guessed if you also have your birthday on facebook, you don't do you? you have your real DOB on social media? change it! (more on that later)

There are loads of Password apps and browser addons that will store your passwords, so make them all what can be these days, suggested. You don't even need to write them down or remember them.

It's very possible and very easy for someone to sit outside your house and run a program that will work out your passwords, your internet router key is also easy if you don't have a strong one.

If you live in a built up area and your password on your router is "myhouse" you've already been hacked.

Turn on "two step verification" do it right now, don't wait, do it. Get the App "Authy" or "google authenticator" - I am sure there are other Apps like it on iOS, Authy is probably on iOS.

That's this mornings advice

iOS has two step verification for app purchases, but unsure of general purchases.

Advice

Do not be complacent, a scam can happen to anyone, no matter how intelligent you think you are.

My wife was hit twice in a week with online banking Revolut a day after joining it!!

Computer takeover scam

These have not gone away and will probably only get more sophisticated. You receive a phone call from someone purporting to be from a tech company such as Microsoft or your internet provider, Eircom, BT etc. They sound convincing and seem to know about you. They might even hand you over to a ‘supervisor’ . They try convince you your computer or bank account has been hacked. Their goal is ultimately to get your bank details and empty your account. They do this typically by gaining control of your PC, in which they get you to download and install a piece of software or present you with a false login screen. There are a few different ways they could try to get your bank details but just do not let them in to begin with and do not divulge any account details or passcodes to them.

My father in law was contacted in this way. He is not tech savvy but smelt a rat and did the right thing. He said he would contact them back. He later explained what happened to us and we just confirmed his suspicions.

Never give a stranger remote control of your PC, or divulge bank account details.

Facebook third-party apps, simply, never use them. You know the ones, game add-ons, enter this competition by installing our app. They harvest your information and your friends information.

If you use Facebook then you should follow both these websites, either website or their Facebook pages.


https://www.hoax-slayer.com/

https://facecrooks.com/

Never ever ever use your real DOB on social media, think about it........ Scammers now have your full name and your DOB, what do banks ask for security questions? and other organisations. At the very least, stop making your birthday public, you can do without the nice wishes, honestly

Facebook logins: you have noticed you cannot log into MHC with your Facebook account. A simple reason for that, security.
Never use your FB login for anything other than FB. Yes it's handy but you might as well start a column in a national newspaper and blog what sites you visit, all your friends information as well as your own is then avaiable to that website. Simply, never do it.

Always the long way around, don't take shortcuts, and logging in with FB to websites is just that.

5 Myths about Password managers


Security Tips

Whilst we are on the subject of linking to Firefox tips, it's also a good idea to use firefox browser at all times.

Trusted Software password manager links

Ive been using the second on on that link for a long time. Currently switching to Firefox Lockwise.

This is one I have only recently started using but so glad I am, the satisfaction is amazing

Firefox's "Facebook Container" - it blocks everything that Faecebook try's to do outside of Faecebook to track you. It can no longer follow you around the internet.

https://support.mozilla.org/en…k-tracking

I've switched to Firefox for its privacy and security and I think it's only for it. It may be an available extension for Chrome but I don't think so.

Google’s Chrome only feeds the beast. Firefox and Safari offer some protections. See here Link

This probably one of the best internet safety tips you will get on here.............. as you all now know if you have read these tips so far it's a minefield, and we are only starting to touch the surface, I have loads more to come and I am sure others do too.

Using Social media is so much of a privacy concern, for those of you that watched Sir Tim's speech on the Richard Dimbleby lecture I wonder did any of you go "Ally has been saying that"? probably not, but I have, I've been on the internet since it's start, I remember when there were no pictures, just black and white text. I'm also a bit if a nerd, but I too have fallen behind in latest trends as I get older. However...

I see and watch with fright the ruination of the internet, I never shut up about how Facebook is destroying the internet, the lives of internet users and the privacy of us all. But Google is doing it also, even Amazon and Apple isn't the 'king of kings' people think it is, far from it.

It's only going to get worse unless we start fighting back.

So what is "one of the best safety tips you will get on here"?

You're on it right now. These forums are designed by a German software developer, they are secure, they are fast, they have no privacy concerns. We maybe lack some interaction to social media, but that's by design. You will never get spam from these forums, you will never be tracked by these forums. I don't know what you had for breakfast or what shoes you have just bought, nor do I want too. But importantly nor does the developer. Yes I've said it before, but your privacy is important to me as my own is.

You are safe here, and in this current time that is a very rare thing.

Another good tip is to change your browsers default search engine, if you don’t want the likes of Google or Bing tracking your searches.

If your default is Google say, they will track you even when you want to enter a site by typing the url directly in the url pane, because the url pane is also a search field. Sneaky if you ask me. So if you went to motorhomecraic by typing www.motorhomecraic.com in the url pane, Google knows what site you just visited. Now why would you want google to know that about you? I would rather be able to go to certain sites directly without Google tracking me.

In that case set a search engine like DuckDuckGo as your default search engine. They don’t track you, sell your data or advertise to you. You can still search via Google anytime you want through their search box on the www.google.com homepage, in which case they will track, but typing a site url into your browsers address window cannot be tracked.

Go to DuckDuckGo to see how to set this in your browser.

Keep your software, devices and ant-virus up to date folks. Cyber attacks have increased five-fold since Covid began, according to WHO. The latest high profile attack is Garmin. Their operations have been crippled and they have declared an outage. Link. The attackers are looking for $10 million to decrypt Garmin's IT network. Anyone using Garmin Connect will be impacted. But Garmin say your data is on your device so should not be compromised.

“Although Garmin Connect is not accessible during the outage, activity and health and wellness data collected from Garmin devices during the outage is stored on the device and will appear in Garmin Connect once the user syncs their device,”

My Sat Nav is still working but I suspect live traffic updates are not.