Five easy-to-remember tips to secure your money and data

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October was observed as Cybersecurity Awareness Month the world over, and with rising incidents of cybercrime and cybersecurity breaches around the world, mid-day brings you some easy-to-remember tips that you can implement to secure your money and your data.

On the internet, sharing isn't caring
Most cybercrimes depend on conning you into sharing your One Time Passwords (OTPs), be it from your bank - which lets cybercriminals steal your money - or from social media platforms - which lets them take over your accounts. Always remember that no one is entitled to know your OTPs, no matter who they are or claim to be - customer support, police or your mom.

Look at the e-mail address carefully
Phishing is the practice of sending out hundreds of e-mails, akin to casting a fishing net in the sea, in the hope that a few will fall prey to the lure of discounts, tax refunds or other attractive benefits. Read the language carefully; grammatical errors are a dead giveaway in phishing e-mails. But that's not all, cybercriminals also impersonate your superiors at work - actually getting their names from professional networking websites - and spoof their e-mail IDs by changing one or two letters. Hence, read even the e-mail IDs carefully.

If it is too good to be true...
...well, then it probably is. That beautiful girl who added you on Facebook and is now declaring her love for you, that's actually a cybercriminal laying a honeytrap. Before you know it, you ‘ll get a video call and the minute you receive it, a grab of your face will be superimposed to look like you are engaged in an indecent act on camera. AI has made this ridiculously easy, and sextortion is the biggest menace faced by Indians in cybercrime today.

Click no links to evade malware
It is almost muscle memory to click on links forwarded by our friends or acquaintances, thinking they might have shared something funny, useful or informative, but many a times, even your friends can send you links loaded with malware - malicious software - without realising it. Never open any links sent by anyone. If it does look legit, still call up the sender to verify if they themselves have opened it and if it is safe. Cybersecurity experts call this the Zero
Trust policy.

Always leave the auto update on
Many of us tweak our settings to only download system or app updates when we have WiFi access in a bid to save precious mobile data. However, every operating system or app has millions of vulnerabilities that are discovered every day by cybersecurity researchers, after which the manufacturer releases patches to fix these bugs. The updates are crucial and the longer your phone or computer is not updated, the higher the chances of malicious hackers exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities to hack your devices.