Basic Ways You Can Protect Your Online Personal Information

Over four hours a day, this is how much a person spends their time online. That’s right, most people spend a full quarter of waking hours glued to their mobile phones and other devices.

No matter how much time you spend online, it just makes sense that you be keen on what and how you are doing online. The need to protect your personal information is imperative, especially more people these days know nothing but steal one’s identity and cause harm.

As financial institutions and banks integrate ISO 20022 migration to protect their data and secure their privacy, any ordinary internet user must practice due diligence to keep their personal information safe as well.

Below are some simple but beneficial ways any ordinary online user can do to stay away from identity theft and the likes.

1. Create strong passwords for your devices. If you accidentally left your smartphone in the taxi or some other public places, can the person who retrieved it access the device? That is very scary. Losing your device is stressful enough.
   What more, the person who found it can access everything you stored in your phone: from your emails to your social media accounts, and even to your critical personal information that you have stored in the device. The surest way to avoid all these catastrophic scenarios is to create a secure passcode. When you have one, at least you’re guaranteed that your personal information, accounts, and apps are protected and secured. Passcode protection must also be enabled on your desktop computers and laptops as well.
2. Use unique and strong passwords for each of your online accounts. If your work email is hacked and your company came across some forms of a data breach, you worry nothing but that specific email.
   However, if you use similar login credentials to all your other accounts, imagine how that one single data breach can cause your security at risk. You’re giving these hackers the chance to access all your other accounts. Thus, it just makes sense that all your accounts are secured with unique login credentials.
3. Minimize your social media sharing. Most of us have this tendency to share anything we see on social media. If possible, try to limit yourself from doing so because your personal information might fall into the wrong hands.
   Also, keep your attention not only to the posts and photos of your share. Your privacy settings must also be checked. If you can, limit the people authorized to see whatever it is you’re sharing. If you have children active on social media platforms, check their privacy settings as well.
4. Careful with Free wi-fi services. You heard the cliché ‘you get what you pay for,’ right? A classic example is free public wi-fi services. Of course, it’s convenient, and it’s free.
   But security-wise, these wi-fi networks do not offer much. If hackers want to breach data, they possibly can, especially when they have the right tools. Suffice it to say, never log in to your bank account, let alone put your credit card number, when you’re using public wi-fi.

Big companies and banking industries have the ISO 20022 migration to protect their clients from possible data and security breaches.

For ordinary online users, you should learn to practice the tips mentioned above to keep your personal information away from the prying eyes of the hackers.