Essential Strategies for Online Safety and Security
The internet is an essential part of our daily lives. Its instant broadcasting capability has changed the lives of billions of people, particularly women. Women’s opportunities are expanded by the Internet, which allows them to increase their employment opportunities, earn additional income, and gain access to knowledge, boosting economic growth and creating a more inclusive, digital world.
While we see benefits online, we also see drawbacks. Cyber stalking, cyber extortion, cyber bullying, cybersex trafficking, and phishing are the most common crimes committed online against women, and the severity of these threats can have severe physical and psychological consequences. This cycle has been vicious and never-ending, and it is time for women to take control and stop the attacks on them. We have listed below a few digital safety tips and digital intelligence tips for navigating safely online.
Possible Crimes that women face online:
* Doxing – It is the act of publicly revealing, earlier private personal information about an individual or organisation. Fraudsters usually acquire information from publicly available databases, past social media postings, and social engineering. Doxing could lead to online shaming or extortion,
* Cyberstalking – It is repeated tracking of an individual using electronic means. (For example, making unwanted phone calls, leaving voice messages or unwanted messages, spying or monitoring social media activities, or posting or threatening to post unwanted information on the internet.) Cyberstalking can lead to emotional distress and can cause bodily harm to the victim or a spouse of intimate partner.
* Swatting – It is an act like making emergency phone calls to hoax in order to provoke and send police
* Sextortion – It’s a form of cyber extortion in which people are forced to provide sexual favours. Sextortion may lead to the distribution of personal and intimate photos.
* Revenge porn– It involves the publication online of sexually explicit images or videos that are typically taken with consent, but they are published without authorisation. Mostly done by a victim’s former spouse or boyfriend.
* Online Sexual Harassment – Receiving unwanted sexual advances or sexual favour requests Content could be explicit pictures, content, jokes, and misogyny.
* Defamation – It is incorrect statement of fact that could harm someone’s reputation. A few examples are accusing someone of being a thief, a liar, or other unethical behaviour.
* Online Impersonation – Fraudsters create a fake account pretending to be you. Fraudsters commit fraud and ask for money from your social media contacts, which also serves as an incentive to encourage others to harass the victim.
* Hate Speech – Includes spreading incitement, promoting or justifying racial hatred, and engaging in political, corporate, or competitor rivalry.
* Cyber Enables Human Trafficking – Leading to Surrogacy, Organ Donations and forced to do cyber frauds.
Few Digital Safety Tips:
* Only browse websites with HTTPS:// (Padlock Symbol).
* Use a complex password that has capital letters, numbers, and special characters.
* Set up Two-Step Authentication for all social, email and banking logins (2FA).
* Never click short links sent via SMS, WhatsApp, and social media messengers.
* Turn off your location while viewing or uploading images..
* Only use end-to-end encryption messengers.
* Set privacy parameters for all social media, messenger, and email applications.
* Be careful while sharing sensitive information on social media platforms. (Financial, Login Credentials, Organisation and Personal Information)
* Connect with real and known people only. (Alternatively, you may choose to lock your profiles. Using privacy settings)
* Consent should be treated the same on both offline and online interactions.
* Never leave your webcam plugged in.
* Secure your smartphone and laptops with anti-virus and anti-malware software’s
* Never access public WiFi unless and until you are sure that it’s a secured network.
* Download apps only from reputable sources (such as Google Play or the Apple App Store).
Few Digital Intelligence Tips:
* Examine How Apps Access Your Data – https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/
* Install the Light Beam Browser Plugin (How Companies Share Data) – https://myshadow.org/resources/lightbeam?locale=en
* Check https://amibeingpwned.com for password breaches involving your email address.
* For image verification, go to http://exifdata.com/ or https://images.google.com or https://www.tineye.com/ and
* Un Shorten the urls – http://www.unshorten.it/
* Use https://isitphishing.org/ to see if the website is engaged in phishing activity.
* If you receive an email and you feel you are suspicious, examine the entire email header https://mxtoolbox.com/EmailHeaders.aspx
* Disable my Google activity https://myactivity.google.com/
* Turn off the options – Allow Apps to Track Other Apps’ Activities.
Social Media Safety Tips: –
* Know how to report, block, and filter content on social media
* Personalise your privacy settings
* Pause for a before you post
* Turn off geolocation
* Use a private Internet connection and never use public WiFi
* Talk to your friends about public posts.
* Report harassment or inappropriate content
* Have strong complex passwords using Special Character, Number, Capital Letter & Symbols and update them frequently
* Make privacy a habit by doing a regular social media privacy check-up
Few Resources on Women Online Safety:
* https://securityinabox.org/en/
* https://exposingtheinvisible.org/resources/#filter=.watching-out-yourself
* https://ssd.eff.org/
* https://hackblossom.org/cybersecurity/
* https://www.accessnow.org/help/
* https://takebackthetech.net/
* https://infosecawareness.in/women
* https://cyber-women.com/en/
* https://feministinternet.org/en
If you are Victim of Cyber Crime:
Ensure you take all screen shots of the offence and report in the respective social media portals. Register a complaint on https://cybercrime.gov.in/ or quickly dial the toll free helpline No. 1930 for more help. Alternatively report on http://ncw.nic.in/ncw-cells/complaint-investigation-cell
– Anil Rachamalla
