Online comminication makes us closer and chances for online relationship are become higher. But this raises security risk issues. We are talking mostly about corresponding with people you have never met in person.
These often happen in dating sites, social networks and online chats.
1. Do not share any personal information online with people you never met!
You will be surprised how many people share private information in the process of getting to know someone online. Whether it is to prove themselves (like where they like or how big is their bank balance) or they are just not cautious enough. Do not give your full name, address, social security number, id number, bank account data, passwords or any other information to strangers online, no matter how honest they feel. Often people pose as authorities or people from your appealing gender to gather this information.
2. If you never met the person on the other side, the chande he/she is an impostor is highly likely.
You can pretent to be someone you are not online. But so can others. There are examples for petty crimes and much more serious crimes.
- Gamer boy in an unknown team says he’s a girl to get more attention and help from his team mates.
- A boy creates a fake female profile to stalk his ex-girlfriends.
- Some girl creates a fake celebrity profile to get more attention.
- A man poses as a rich Nigerian prince. He asks for financial help ($200-2000) in order to get his hands on his inheritance. In exchange he will give you millions after that.
- A criminal poses as a lawyer. He represents a relative of yours and says this relative has committed a crime. He asks for a lot of money to fix the issue.
- A criminal poses as a rich man searching for his female soul mate. But to be sure she is not a gold-digger she should give him access to her bank account to see what funds she has.
- A man of middle age poses as s young girl using randomly downloaded images from the same girl. He asks for money from boys for transportation in order for them to meet.
- A married man poses as a teenager, using randomly downloaded images from the same teenager boy to pray on young girls.
- A middle-aged woman poses as a young girl to arrange meetings with young boys.
- Some criminal poses as a friend of a rich heiress in order to abduct her and ask for ransom.
If you ever notice someone questionable contact the web site administrator and the authorities.
3. Be very cautious when sending important and secret information online.
Even if you send this information to someone you know, there are several aspects to consider.
- Do you send it to the right person? You could make a typo and send the information to the wrong person.
- Is there a possibility that the recipient’s email could be hacked?
- Could the recipient be trusted. Would he/she give the information to someone else or is he/she negligent to his/her security?
- Is the communication channel secure? Does it use encrypted connection and is there a way our communication could be followed?
4. Do not upload pictures or videos of you, which you would want to be public.
Once online, forever online. Whether you store them on a cloud service or they are on public display on social media, these images/videos are available to someone. This content is stored on multiple locations. If you have spicy photos which became public once, it is very likely someone has copied and spread them on multiple places.
After the 2014 iCloud hack, where nude celebrity photos, taken with their own phones, leaked, you can’t be sure what is secure and what not. So be careful what you store and where.
5. Be careful with live video chats.
There are many ways to record everything that happens on the screen. What you say and do during live video chats (even with a person you know), could get online and public very fast. You could easily be recorded and uploaded on social media or some web site. And once a content becomes public, you can hardly track the places it has been copied to.
