To avoid Identity theft on the internet; you should properly use and manage all your internet accounts

Your e-mail accounts, instant messaging service accounts and social networking profiles should be managed properly. This is because criminals are always looking for ways to steal important information from them. You should avoid revealing so much about yourself on your social networking profiles, chat rooms and instant messaging service accounts. Hence, you should not post your usernames and passwords, bank account details, personal Identification and credit card numbers, birth date and your mother’s maiden name on chat rooms, your social networking profiles and instant messaging service accounts. Some criminals could use the information you provide on those platforms, to defraud you, or to damage your reputation.

It is also important you verify the identity of friends you make on social networking profiles, before you attempt meeting them for the first time. And if you must meet them, it must be in a public location, and you should be accompanied by someone you trust. But, you should not in any condition accept meeting them in hotels, private residence, or locations you know nothing about. It could be risky and dangerous if you do so.

You should control how other people would view your information on social networking sites, through the privacy settings in your profiles. With the privacy settings, you can determine what information your friends and the rest of the pubic could see. In fact, with the proper adjustment of the privacy settings, some of your information can only be seen by your friends.

However, you should still be aware that even if your information is only seen by your friends, it is also possible that the rest of the public could see them. This is because your friends could decide to copy and paste the information where the rest of the public could access them. And you should also not forget the fact, that your friend today could be your ex-friend tomorrow. Therefore, you should only share the information that you wouldn't mind, if your parents and others close to you see them.

Similarly, you should not post your financial information, such as your debit and credit card numbers, and bank account details on your social networking profiles. Some criminals would always search for such information on social networking profiles, in order to harvest them for fraudulent activities.

You should avoid sending your financial details and other sensitive information, through your e-mail accounts except the accounts are encrypted. The messages you send through un-encrypted e-mail accounts could be read and modified by other people, without your knowledge and permission.

You should avoid visiting websites through shortened universal resource locators, and links that are embedded in your e-mail messages, social networking profiles and instant messaging service accounts. Such Universal Resource Locators and links could install viruses and other malicious programs in your system, or they could even re-direct your web browsers to fake sites without your knowledge.

You should always install the up-to-date version of your e-mail accounts and instant messaging service software. The new versions would always come with higher security than the previous ones. And the previous ones could be vulnerable on the internet.

You should allow only trusted and secure third party applications run in your social networking profiles, in order not to expose your profiles to suspicious and malicious applications. And you should reject to re-enter your password any time you are automatically logged out from your social networking profile; either because of a video clip you are accessing, or a link you clicked in your profile.

You should always delete e-mail attachments from people you don’t know; and you should scan the expected attachments with anti-virus programs before you open them. This would protect you from viruses that are sent through the internet as e-mail attachments.

And whenever you receive unexpected e-mail attachments from people you know and trust, you should first confirm from them before you open and read the attachments. This would also protect you from malicious programs, such as worms that transmit themselves on the internet as e-mail attachments.

You should not respond to e-mail messages, tweets or posts that would ask you for account update or verification through links; even if it is sent by your bank or any organization you have account with. You should not panic, even if the senders threaten to terminate your accounts, if you don’t respond within a specified time stated in the message.

You should be totally aware, that such messages are usually sent by criminals; and the threat of account termination, is just their strategy to make you respond immediately. And the so called verification links you are asked to follow, would only take you to a duplicate website, where the information you enter would go directly to the criminals that built the website. In fact, this attack is known as phishing attack in the internet world; and the actual purpose of this type of attack is to harvest your username and password, your personal identifying information and financial details for identity theft.

Identity theft occurs when a criminal or even someone close to you, uses your personal identifying information such as your names, home and office address, day of birth and identity card numbers, to impersonate you on the internet without your knowledge. The criminals or the identity thieves could use your identity to steal what belongs to you on the internet, or they could use the identity to damage your reputation and to attack others on the internet. And the only time you could discover such attack, is when you notice unusual activities in your accounts, or when you are wanted for crimes you never committed.

Therefore, anytime you receive such verification messages, you should delete them without responding. But in case you feel they are genuine, you should first contact your bank or the organization that sent the message through their official website. However, you must type the real website name of the organization, on the browser address bar yourself, instead of following the links or coping and pasting them on the browser address bar.

You should avoid opening e-mail messages with double file extensions and the ones with executable file extensions. Most criminals use double file extensions to hide executable file extensions in e-mails messages. And e-mail messages with executable file extensions would likely contain virus.  

You should always search the internet to know what others have written about you. Some of your old friends or perceived enemies could use the internet to trash your reputation. Therefore, if you see any negative information about yourself on a website, you should inform the website administrators through their e-mail accounts. And if that doesn't solve the problem, you can contact other relevant authorities. And in order to attend to such problems immediately they occur, it is important you set up Google alert, so you can always receive e-mail updates whenever anything related to your name is posted on the internet.

You should delete spam messages from your e-mail accounts without reading them. But before you delete them, you should first check for legitimate massages in your spam folder. Some legitimate e-mail messages could be sent to the spam folder by your e-mail providers, and also as a result of your filter settings.

You should also not forget to report suspicious and fraudulent messages to your e-mail providers. When you report a message as fraudulent, the sender would be blacklisted in your e-mail account. Hence, you would never receive messages from such sender in the future, except he or she uses another e-mail account

Strong Password: Your key to Internet safety

Another thing you need to do in order to stay safe on the internet is to always create strong passwords for all your online accounts.

With strong passwords, your twitter, Facebook, e-mail and other online accounts would be protected from criminals that would want to access them without your knowledge and consent.

But with the weak passwords, your friends and malicious hackers could easily access your accounts without your knowledge and permission. Malicious hackers are criminals that use different security tools to break into systems on the internet without the consent of the owners.

Strong passwords would be very difficult for others to guess and for any malicious software to crack. Therefore, your passwords should be very difficult for your friends to guess and for any software to crack. However, it should be the ones you can easily remember.

Strong passwords are not less than eight characters. Therefore, your passwords should not be less than that. The longer your passwords, the stronger they would be.

Strong passwords consist of alphabets, numeric and special characters. Therefore, your passwords should be a mixture of numbers, symbols, lower and upper case letters. With such combination, it would be extremely difficult for criminals to guess them.

Strong passwords are not found in any dictionary. Therefore, your passwords should not exist as words in the English, Chinese, Spanish or any other foreign dictionary. Some criminals could use dictionary programs to crack such passwords.

Strong passwords mustn’t be names or user IDs of accounts. Therefore, your names, club names, user IDs, pet names, school and other familiar names shouldn’t be used as your passwords. Some criminals could try those names in order to break into your accounts.

Strong passwords are only entered into trusted systems. Therefore, your passwords should not be entered into systems that are not under your control; because, you never can tell if a malicious program such as key logger, or even the owner have compromised the system. Key logger is a program that records user-names and passwords, and other sensitive information as they are entered into websites. The recorded information is then saved in a special file, so that the criminals that installed the key logger, could access the file immediately the system connects to the internet.

Strong passwords are always changed periodically. Therefore, your passwords should be changed at least once every three months. This would protect your accounts from intruders, and other criminals that would have access to your passwords, without your knowledge.

Strong passwords are managed properly. Therefore, your passwords shouldn’t be written on note books or diaries, except you are totally sure that other people wouldn’t access them. And if you decide to save them in your system, you should not name their files and folders, in such a way that would expose them, to other people that would use the system in your absence.

Strong passwords are only known by their owners. Therefore, your passwords should not be shared or revealed to your friends and other people, no matter how you love and trust them. Remember, that the people you trust with your passwords might not be that careful to manage them like you do.

Strong passwords are not stored in browsers. Therefore, when next your browser suggests saving your password, you should kindly reject the offer. Because passwords that are stored in browsers could be compromised by malicious programs, without the knowledge of the owners. And browsers are always the first programs that criminals target on the internet.

Do you want to be protected on the internet? Then be a good Netizen

For maximum safety on the internet, you must resolve to be good on the internet.

And what that means is that you should resolve to be honest, respectful, tolerant and friendly in the internet community. You should never think of defrauding other people in the internet community. Hence, you should not allow your friends influence you into doing things that would make others lose their money on the internet. You should not abuse other people in the internet community. You should not send offensive comments, or distribute racist materials on the internet. You should not use the internet to damage the reputation of other people. Hence, you should not spread false information about others on the internet, and you should not use their names and addresses to associate with websites that project evil activities.

You should not post nude pictures of yourself or that of your friends on the internet. You should also not send pornographic materials to the internet. And you should totally avoid watching and downloading them in your system. Remember, that anything you post on the internet would ever remain there, even after you delete them. And pornographic websites are the easiest and fastest medium that viruses are spread on the internet.

You should not copy and paste materials you see on the internet into your assignments or projects works, without taking permission from the authors; or acknowledging them in your reference page. You could be arrested and sued for plagiarism, if you are caught.

You should not assume that every website that appears on the first page of any search engine is genuine and reliable. Some criminals could use fraudulent means to achieve such rankings. Therefore, even if a website appears on the first page of a search engine does not mean it is genuine, or that the content is authentic. In fact, not all information you read on the internet is accurate, reliable and timely. You should always consult different websites, before you accept the accuracy of any information. And you should be sure that any website you are consulting is owned and managed by trusted people, or reputable organization.

You should not download movies and songs from the internet without paying for them; except the ones that are genuinely offered for free. When you download movies and songs illegally, you violate the intellectual copyright law covering them. And that could cost you a lot, or even land you in prison if you are caught.

And anytime you are offered free games, screen savers, emoticons and other application programs on the internet, you should reject them; except the ones that are offered by reputable publishers. Most of the free programs offered on the internet are Trojan horses. And Trojan horse is a program which appears to be performing a good task in a system, but unknown to the owner; the Trojan horse would be secretly performing other harmful activities in the system.

You should avoid every form of bullying such as the abuse, threat, harassment and the intimidation of other people on the internet.  And in case you are bullied, you should not retaliate. But you should report to your parents or the administrators of the website that the bullies are using. And if that doesn't solve the problem, then, you can report to other relevant authorities.

You should think before you post, send or share things in the internet community. Hence, you should never send anything on the internet when you are angry. And you should ensure that whatever you post on the internet, wouldn't affect your reputation in the future. Remember, that anything you send on the internet could be seen by other people. And most importantly, others would judge you by the kind of information they see about you on the internet.

Internet Security Alert: Please don't ignore this

First, I want to thank the telecommunication companies, the federal government, and other stakeholders for the growth of information Communication technology. Without their vision and commitment, our country would have missed the ICT revolution, just like we missed the industrial revolution some years ago. With the recent launch of different fiber optic cables, coupled with the creation of the federal ministry of communication technology, I strongly believe that internet access which is an integral part of the ICT revolution would be faster, more affordable and easier to access.

Undoubtedly, the internet has changed every facet of our society. The way we live, learn, communicate and do business isn't the same again. The internet has totally transformed the 21^st century into an era of possibilities. 

With the internet, you can reach your friends, class mates and others around the world at the speed of light. You can also access your favorite games, videos, music, news updates and other vital information. And most importantly, you can take real-time lectures on the internet.

In fact, you can learn about anything on the internet. You can share knowledge with students from other institutions. And you can also interact with the best lecturers around the world.

The possibilities and the opportunities are just boundless and limitless. Sincerely, the internet has ushered in a level playing ground for the 21^st century students. Hence, with the internet, you can compete favorably well with students from other parts of the world.

If you can only harness ten percent of the opportunities on the internet, the sky would be your starting point. And with vision, focus, time and determination, you can achieve greater heights in your academics and other areas of your life. In fact, you can dare to dream; you can even become the next Bill Gate, Steve Job, Jack Dorsey and the Mark Zuckerbergs of this world. After all, Mark Zuckerberg was just 20 years old when he founded Facebook in 2004. 

However, in spite of these great opportunities, you should also not forget the fact, that the internet as a community has its own challenges. And just like other communities of the world, evil people have invaded the internet. And their only business is to attack and defraud innocent people in the internet community.

They use different tools and techniques to carry out their evil acts. They steal private and sensitive information from other members of the internet community. And most times, they take advantage of the anonymity of the internet, to abuse, threaten and to intimidate other people. They could be the next door neighbors of their victims, or maybe thousands of miles away from them.

They are known in the community as cyber criminals, malicious hackers, malware writers, identity thieves, cyber bullies and stalkers, spammers or the so called yahoo boys.

On the 7^th of September 2013, the Nigerian punch news paper ran a special feature entitled “the incredible world of millionaire student fraudsters”. In that report, it was discovered that some students were behind most cyber crimes committed in the country.

It was shocking to read how these set of students defrauded millions from their victims, and wasted the money on frivolous life styles in their various campuses. But the good news is that nemesis has caught-up with them; because as of today, they are in the custody of the Economic and financial crime commission (EFCC). And certainly, they would spend some of their precious years in the prison, if they are finally convicted. What a pity! But if only they had channeled their skills and talents positively; perhaps by now, their story would have been totally different. At least, we are very much aware of the great exploit, of some young Nigerians on the internet.