6 ways to protect against cyber crime
Risks involved
Don’t install any direct application bypassing App Store or Play Store. You also need to be cyber smart and check three things before you install any app or tool: the developer, the reviews and the permissions. Recently, there was a wave of ‘Insta Loan’ apps. Most of these were Chinese and promised you a loan instantly without any documentation. But these loans came with huge interests and led to extortion when people were unable to pay back. Worse, these apps could access data on your phones, and copy your contact list and photos, says Dr. Rakshit Tandon, director of Hackershala, and consultant at Internet and Mobile Association of India. If people had checked the developer info, they would have realised that the apps aren’t reliable.
Parental control
Parental control on all devices helps you filter out inappropriate search words or content, and also controls access your kids may have to some things. Last year, a 16-year-old boy in Mumbai spent Rs 10 lakh from his mother’s bank account to play PUBG. Around the same time, a 13-year-old boy in MP’s Chhatarpur hanged himself after he spent Rs 40,000 of his parents’ money on an online game. Parents need to have content control, and educate children about their digital footprint.
Black Hat SEO
Another scary factor is Google poisoning. This is when you try to find something on a search engine, but hackers, through what is called ‘Black Hat SEO’, have managed to put their own fake website at the top of search results. So, it may not be necessary that the first result you get is the genuine one. And if they ask you to download any app or tool, be suspicious.