Attacks on the Internet take various forms, and so we’ll provide you with several ways to defend yourself on the Internet. These techniques will help you minimize the damage from an attack—but they won’t help you get even (which I don’t suggest trying).
Defend Yourself On The Internet From Major Threats
The first thing you should do if you think you’re in danger is call the police. This is especially important if children are at risk—or if you suspect that children are making the attacks.
Although many police departments are behind the technological curve, they do have access to specialists who, in turn, have relationships with Internet Service Providers, social networking companies, and tech-savvy judges.
Nine times out of ten, the police can cut through Internet anonymity and bring to justice anyone who threatens you, so they’re by far the best way to defend yourself on the Internet.
Tricks For Calling The Cops
- Keep good records of threatening emails, instant messages, forum posts, and other communication. If possible print out hard copies for the police and also burn digital copies onto CD-ROMs.
- If you have the money, prepare to retain a lawyer. He or she can help you get the best results from the justice system.
- Be prepared to answer a lot of questions about your life. Most dangerous online crime is perpetrated by people who know you offline, so the police are going to want to know who might hold a grudge against you.
- Don’t depend on the police for protection. The police preserve law and order by putting criminals in jail—after they commit a crime. Don’t let that crime happen to you—lock your doors, don’t spend time alone out in the open, carry a legal self-defense weapon, and take other measures to stay safe.
Defend Yourself On The Internet Against
Cyber-bullying is less physically threatening than serious Internet threats—although you need to guard against it escalating to physical threats.
Studies show that most cyber-bullies are boys in elementary and middle school, but that girls become the predominate cyber-bullies in high school and after graduation.
Cyber-bullies also attack adults even though few adults report the attacks. Many adult cyber-bullying attacks are workplace related, but Internet-based sexual harassment of women also remains common.
Defend Yourself On The Internet Against Insults
The easiest thing to do when insulted on the Internet is just what your mother taught you: ignore it. Sometimes trying to defend yourself on the internet can add fuel to the fire.
But ignoring insults on the Internet takes willpower—especially ignoring insults hurled at you in front of hundreds of your friends on Facebook and other social media sites. In this case, modify your mother’s strategy:
Ignore the attacks—but let your friends and family defend you. Then publicly thank anyone who defends you (as long as they don’t say anything inappropriate).
If nobody defends you, then it’s possible that there’s some truth to the insult—or that you need better friends.
Defend Yourself On The Internet Against Forgery
The Internet’s anonymity and psuedoanomity help make it useful, but anonymity also helps your enemies forge accounts in your name. Worse, easy photo and video manipulation software makes it easy for Internet attackers to forge photos or videos of you. Especially now that facial recognition software is becoming more widely used.
What can you do when someone pretends to be you on the Internet or forges an image of you? First, consider calling the cops—the more time someone puts into attacking you, the more likely it is to escalate into actual violence. Also, pretending to be someone in order to harm them is a crime in many places.
But whether or not the police catch your attacker, you still need to deal with fake accounts and images—none of which you can easily delete. There are two strategies for dealing with them—you should use both strategies for maximum effect.
First, contact the sites that host the ill begotten material and ask that it be taken down. Explain your position in one or two short paragraphs. Most sites will comply with your request.
Your second strategy is to be more popular than your evil alter-egos. Few people are going to look further down the Google results than the first page when they search for your name, so if you use basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques to make pages about yourself, you can easily wipe the slate clean.
Defend Yourself On The Internet While Using Facebook
Facebook has opened up a whole new can of worms as adults and children use this social dominating monster. It is a great website but people are usually ignorant to the dangers it presents. For example Facebook can leave you and your friends open to identity theft. This is just one simple example but unfortunately there are many. There are many security measures that parents need to know when letting their children use a website such as Facebook and it goes further than just your childs’ account. What if their friends are broadcasting your childs updates on their walls. People often do not even bother to hide their friends list either.
Defend Yourself On The Internet Against Hacking
The most severe Internet-based attacking is hacking. Hacking is easier these days than ever before with simple point-and-click hacking tools developed for the bored teenager and young adult markets, so you needn’t know any super-geeks to be the subject of tech terrorism.
The best defense against hacking is to follow steps to protect your computer found here on Tips4PC. But adding to that I also suggest that you pay more attention to physical security. Remember that most victims of cyber-bullying know their attackers offline—and it doesn’t take much technical skill to hack an unguarded laptop sitting right in front of you.
Hacking is a crime everywhere—and it’s one the police take increasingly seriously—so don’t hesitate to call the police if you do get hacked. Putting hackers in jail is the only long-term way to defend yourself on the Internet.
Install a Program to Your Computer!
A software program will not upgrade your memory but it will clean out all the junk files, detect Malware, delete unused registry keys, Automatic Driver updates, and more. Not taking advantage of the latest updates and security patches can leave your computer vulnerable to attacks. At the moment I am using PC Matic to maintain everything for me. This software is amazing and has won a number of top awards. You can get a free scan for your computer to see how it works before you buy.
Truly, one has to be careful of the information they give to “friends” they meet online. There is is sad story of a girl who was killed recently by two of her facebook “friends”. check it here: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/25/world/africa/nigeria-facebook-murder-cynthia-osokogu/index.html
Yes threats on the internet become more normal, although I haven’t really been victim to anything aside from a little virus.
I think cyber bullying is not a big problem if it just stays at mean words on a forum or game. But when the attacks become more personal, like on your facebook or to your email, parents should help their kids to not provoke or escalate the situation.
Everybody is a hero on the internet not just the attacker, also the person who is defending himself is a lot braver on the internet, in some cases provoking unnecessarily. If somebody bullies you and you retort with something like “shut up or I’ll kick your *ss” unless you are actually able and willing to do that, you should not say it. You might get called on your bluff. It’s like dealing with a wild animal, you don’t know if he is just trying to intimidate you or actually getting ready to attack so don’t put your hand in the cage.
I agree you have to be careful who you are friends with..The internet is very decieving.