Do You Know Who’s Spying on You?

/in /by

There have multiple revelations about government agencies spying on their citizens, which, frankly, should come as no surprise. But there are also several others who are also spying on you, and often you’ve given them permission to do so.

  • Hackers: Routers can be hacked if not properly secured. Spyware can be installed if your PC doesn’t have antivirus, antispyware, antiphishing and a firewall.
  • Internet service providers: The company that provides you your internet connection collects data about you that is stored on its servers and is available to law enforcement with a warrant or corporations that feel you violated copyright.
  • Employers: Like it or not, your employer owns the devices it provides you, and in some cases can access the devices you own if they are used for company communications.
  • Identity thieves: Criminals set up shop looking for potential victims of their multitude of scams. They check you out via social media or simply pick you at random via a phishing email. But once they connect with you, they research your IP address—and everything else they can find about you—to make their scam more believable.
  • Websites: Sites install cookies in your browser to track where you go and what you click. The purpose of this is to send you targeted ads and sell you stuff.

Prevent spying:

  1. Lock down your wireless router using its built-in security settings that have WPA2 encryption. Your router’s wizard will walk you through the process.
  2. Update your browser, OS-critical security patches, antivirus, antispyware, antiphishing and firewall.
  3. Set your browser to clear your cache daily.
  4. At work, just work. No playing online.
  5. Lock down your social profiles and say little. Keep it professional.
  6. Use a VPN (i.e Hotspot Shield VPN) to mask your IP address and protect your internet traffic from snoops.

Robert Siciliano is an Identity Theft Expert to Hotspot Shield VPN. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen See him discussing internet and wireless security on Good Morning America. Disclosures. For Roberts FREE ebook text- SECURE Your@emailaddress -to 411247.