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Having some basic knowledge of cyber security will protect your entrepreneurial projects from hack attacks, which are becoming more sophisticated over time.
This potential risk could not only hurt your online business, but also expose your clients’ personal information to exploitative intruders. No one wants to ever think about that possibility, but it can happen if there are privacy leaks. This is why it’s so important to stay up-to-date with online security best practices.
During my web development studies few years ago, I learned about the importance of online protection and privacy for everyone who works from home, runs an online business, or travels and works abroad for a living.
These are my top 8 privacy essentials that I would recommend:
HTTPS
Some basic advantages of using HTTPS based secured connections include:
Authority: You build trust with your audience by guaranteeing visitors that whatever information is available on your website is a reliable source and has not been tampered with by anyone.
Privacy: Users can rest assured that their personal activity on your website is fully encrypted with HTTPS and can’t be viewed by third parties.
Protection: If you have any form of e-commerce on your business website, sensitive information such as credit card or bank account numbers remain confidential, making it secured enough to complete transactions.
On a side note, Google recently stated that all the HTTPS based websites/blogs will see a boost in SEO ranking, which increases your business website’s visibility on search engines.
Think of a time when you looked something up through a search engine and then, ads related to this search started appearing all over your Facebook and Instagram feeds. Google is undoubtedly tracking your online behavior for profit.
Third parties use privacy-invading tools to track and hoard personal information such as your location, demographics, transaction history, and more. The Brave browser protects your personal information from the harsh reality of this intrusive surveillance we’re all exposed to in this day and age.
You use your web browser more than any other tool on your computer; it’s basically your lifeline on the internet. If you want to maintain browsing privacy, especially in your entrepreneurial projects, Brave offers more privacy protections than its browser competitors.
The Brave browser loads pages 3x faster than Google Chrome, has 33% less memory usage, allows you to browse the web anonymously, automatically upgrades you to the most secured connection in real time, prevents installation of malware, uses a built-in ad blocker so that you don’t need to install one, and provides up to one hour more battery life.
Another impressive feature that Brave offers is additional privacy by using a Private Window with Tor, which hides your IP address and search history from everyone, including Brave.
A lot of people believe that they’re browsing safely when they use Google Chrome’s incognito mode, but the truth is that it doesn’t actually hide your browsing activity or your location, leaving your personal information out in the open to websites, your Internet provider, and even your employer.
Last of all, Brave pays you to surf the web. Yes, you read that right. I’ve been making between $6-$8 monthly from simply browsing the web. Yay to free lattes! 🙂
I used AVG and Avast for almost a decade, but technology is always evolving and better options are constantly being released. In my search for the most modern and optimal anti-virus software in 2019, I came across Bit Defender and never looked back.
Bitdefender Antivirus offers the best protection in the industry, and has ranked high within the last 10 years on independent test scores. Your computer will be protected against all viruses, ransomware, phishing and online fraud while you shop and browse.
Compared to its competitors, Bit Defender is unique because of its lightweight “smart scan technology”, which takes up less memory space in your computer. The installation process is fairly easy and the best part about it is that there’s a free version.
Something I love about this antivirus is that it’s always active behind the scenes and goes unnoticed. You’ll never receive unsolicited pop-ups while using your computer.
DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser Extension
DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials blocks hidden third-party trackers that are detected on the websites you visit, redirects you to encrypted versions of websites whenever possible, and forces websites to use a secured HTTPS connection. This way, your data is safe from possible lurkers.
DuckDuckGo doesn’t collect or share any personal browsing information, as mentioned in their privacy policy.
The DuckDuckGo search engine is also built into the extension where you can make anonymous searches.
If you run multiple apps on a day-to-day basis, especially if you use project management and social media scheduling tools in your business, remembering all of your passwords can eventually become a real headache.
To save time and energy, I recommend Last Pass to keep all of your passwords saved, managed, protected, and encrypted.
Encrypted Documents
End-to-end encryption is the best method to protect sensitive information and keep it strictly between you and your clients. Just because you use a password to log into your hotmail/gmail account doesn’t mean it’s safe from third parties.
ProtonMail is an encrypted email provider that takes email security very seriously. Companies like Google can read, track, and log every email in your account.
On the contrary, ProtonMail guarantees that nobody but you can read the messages in your inbox, even messages that did not come from other ProtonMail users.
It offers zero-access encryption, which means that you have complete ownership of your data. ProtonMail doesn’t have the ability to read it or sell it to third parties.
Aside from the security of emails resting in your inbox, there should also be consideration for the security of emails that are in transit.
ProtonMail’s end-to-end encryption ensures that messages are encrypted on the sender’s device (before it even leaves their computer or mobile phone), and can only be accessed by the recipient on their device.
VPNs
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) hides your IP address from the world. If you have an online business or you’re a digital nomad who travels for a living, a VPN can spoof your computer’s IP address, which allows you to get around geo-restricted content bans in countries where certain apps/websites like Netflix or Amazon aren’t licensed.
Similarly, a VPN bypasses oppressive censorship on the interwebs. You’ve most likely seen Youtube videos that are blocked based on location or government regulations. Another example is China’s ban on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Flickr.
You can use a VPN anywhere in the world, over any network. This versatility provides an additional level of privacy, protection, and inner peace.
Two-Factor Authentication
Activate two-factor authentication whenever possible to add an extra level of cyber security. Apps that offer this feature usually ask if you would like to set it up.
Two-factor authentication has been proven to act as a simple yet resilient security solution to prevent virus and hacking attacks as well as identify theft effectively.
Everything mentioned here is really all you need to protect your personal information and data in your online spiritual business.
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