In today’s generation the most used thing is the internet and it plays an important role in our daily routine. Internet is not only for entertainment purpose it's also used for shopping online, texting friends for free, playing games, banking, trading, studying and even work from home. To be honest, I personally love the internet, it helps me with my anxiety. So yeah, internet is already making our life easier day by day but it also comes with many dangers.
One of the major issue is the scammers, they are always finding new schemes to trick innocent people and also the greedy people. These scammers now can easily set traps which can't be detected easily. From fake links to hacked accounts, online scams are now very common. For that reason people should learn how to stay safe online. Well, I do have few rules which I follow to protect myself from these online scammers. First of all, I do not write down my passwords on notes app.
I also do not share my passwords with anyone even if they are my family members. I always create different passwords for each accounts, and I always use symbols and digits in a password. Like I put different combinations to make them harder to guess. I always avoid links even if it's from my friends, because my friends account could also get hacked right? I only click when the website url looks normal to me.
I would advice everyone to turn on two-factor authentication for every account because it will provide extra security. I have personally experienced an online scam before. I really feel embarrassed whenever I think about it. So, it happened few years ago, I had an old Discord account. I saw everyone in my circle had nitro membership but at that time I did not like to spend money online. So, one day a message arrived in my inbox saying I could get free Discord Nitro. I was very excited without thinking carefully.
When I clicked the link, it took me to a similar website looking like Discord, it was the login page and I did not read the website url. So, I entered my account details without suspecting anything. After few hours one of my friend contacted me on Instagram, saying that "Why are you asking for money in discord? and since when did you have a sister?" I literally panicked, checked my Discord and found that I had been logged out. So, I realized my account had been stolen by a scammer can't say "hacked" because I gave it away myself.
I couldn’t believe that I was tricked, later I could not recover my account but asked all of my friends to block my account. Since then, I have become much more careful online.
So yeah, this phishing scams are the most dangerous one. My advice to others is to stay alert all of the time and do not trust anyone online easily. In conclusion, staying safe online should always be a priority.
This is my entry to a contest of indiaunited, I would love to invite you to participate!
The images are created with Gemini and edited with Canva