The Internet is a fun place for everyone. You can play games, shop for products, chat with friends, and do lots of fun stuff. But it's not all a bed of roses. There is also a darker side that you may not be aware of - information theft. There is value in data, and there are people out there who will stop at nothing to steal data and use them against you. Here is a list of data that others may find of value.
1) Credit card information. - If your credit card info gets stolen, the same info can be used to commit fraud. You will see your card details being used to make costly purchases online. If you are unaware of the theft, thousands of dollars may be charged to the card without your knowledge.
2) Personal information. - Such information is usually used by criminals to con others into sending them money. For example, someone may call you up and say that you have won in a lucky draw. Of course, the caller identifies himself by saying that he knows so-and-so, who is a friend of yours. That establishes trust instantly. Then he goes on to say that he knows your entire group of friends. Now you really trust this person! Of course, the caller may have just cited the names he had gotten from a social networking website. But you couldn't have known that. Once trust is established, the caller starts to ask for small amounts of money as administrative fees for the lucky draw. As time goes by, the caller starts asking for more. This goes on until the caller senses that you have grown suspicious. By then, you may have transferred hundreds or thousands of dollars to an unknown bank account. Tough luck. And it all started from having your personal information stolen from a website.
So what you can do to prevent the above from happening?
First, never reveal your credit card information on untrusted sites. Fraudsters have resorted to using phishing methods to try and trick users into believing that they are visiting legitimate sites. Users then enter their credit card info unknowingly. The data is, of course, sent to the fraudsters. Learn to recognize phishing emails and delete them immediately. Do not click on any links and visit the websites. You can always tell when the links look suspicious. They don't point to the original domain.
Next, make sure that you do not share personal information on social networks. For instance, your home address and contact numbers should be kept secret at all times for security purposes. The bigger social networks have got security settings that allow you to hide all your personal info. Make sure the security measures are enough to prevent personal data from being stolen.
Finally, if you are a webmaster, you can sign up for Whois privacy. Whois privacy prevents your personal data from being revealed with a Whois Search.
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