Beings online has offered me opportunities beyond what I could ever imagine.  I still recall my first day on Facebook, I

was as excited as a little girl getting her first doll. Lol.  

It was my husband that had insisted I open an account. When I

hesitated, he went ahead and set up my account and showed me how to navigate my

way on the app. When he asked for a name of any friend I wanted to search for

and the picture of a friend I lost contact with showed up, wella!  That caught my interest. That was the

beginning of my online journey.

Since then, I have met not only fiends from long ago, but I made

new friends. I got to know some other online platforms, made connections, taken

courses online, made financial transactions, attended virtual meetings, did

fundraising for the nonprofit I run and met powerful women doing great things

in their own unique way in different parts of the world. World Pulse is one of

my finds online.

As much as I could access the internet, I gave it my whole self.

The possibilities are endless. The benefits overwhelming. The world beckoning,

new features to attract, it was just one click away.

My online experience began to turn sour when I saw that

being online was not so safe. I saw that the challenges people battle with

offline could still be experienced online. From cyberbullying, to sextortion to

identity theft, cyberporn, stalking, sexual harassment etc. The dangers are

endless just as the possibilities.

I hear that the internet was built first for military purposes

and was never intended to be secure and so will never be 100% safe, but it behooves

on me to protect myself from cyber risks.

Here are some of the things we can do to be safe online.

MAINTAING TECHNICAL SECURITY:  Anti viruses cannot do all the work so maintaining

an active firewall can provide a basic protection for our computers reducing

the threats of viruses, malware ,hacking or spam.

BACK-UPS: make back-ups of all information contained in our

computers.

PROTECT YOUR IDENTITY AND PRIVACY:  Much abuse and financial fraud can happen

when our personal information is revealed online. Hackers can access our emails

accounts, social media handles or bank  accounts

and use them against us.  Having very

strong passwords that are long and complex is key. Changing passwords regularly

and using different passwords for different websites is helpful to secure one

’s self online.

BEING CAREFUL: We should exercise caution while online. There

are many offers that are presented to us, we are left with the choice to choose

to click on them. Once an offer is too good to be true it is most likely fraud.

Calls that require us to read out codes sent to us, calls supposedly from our

banks asking for vital information should not be replied.

LOGGING OFF: After use simply logging off our accounts and

computers can save us from a lot of  dangers online.   

 These are just a few

of what individuals can do be save from potential hazards and reducing our vulnerability

to them.