Cyber Threats to Family: Here’s How to Safeguard Everyone

Posted on: Jul 25, 2022 | 3 mins | Written by: HDFC ERGO Team

Cyber Threats to Family: Here’s How to Safeguard Everyone

The technique of defending systems, networks and programs from online threats is known as cybersecurity. The typical objectives of these cyberattacks include gaining access to, altering, or deleting sensitive data, demanding money from users, or interfering with regular corporate operations. Because there are more gadgets than humans and attackers are getting more creative, putting into place effective cybersecurity safeguards is extremely difficult today. One of the ways you can protect yourself or your family from any harm caused by cyberattacks is by getting cyber insurance for family, a solution that gives the ability to reduce the risk of cybercrime, such as cyberattacks and data breaches.

Cybersecurity is significant because it covers all aspects of safeguarding our data from online thieves who wish to steal it and exploit it for malicious purposes. This can include private information, property, health information, and personally identifiable information. The right to privacy is a fundamental human right and is legally protected. This is used to indicate that individuals should be free to live inside the confines of their own homes without the government's interference.

Today, having a private life entails being allowed to interact openly, make unrestricted decisions, and conduct internet searches as desired. All these things should be possible for you to achieve without influencing your regular life. Although this is a fundamental right, many individuals are unaware of how personal data is being gathered, utilized, and distributed online. Cyber security breaches can result in identity theft and extortion attempts on a family level, which can seriously harm your family and even your personal life. So, to protect yourself and your family as well, cyber insurance is suggested by many.

When disclosing your personal information, it is your duty as a consumer to make an educated choice. Your location, gender, buying history, age, and other personal information are all very valuable. Likewise, your online surfing history leaves digital traces. It's not just about what information you send out; it's also about what information and resources you grant businesses and applications access to. For instance, this may happen when downloading an app. Before you can use an application, you frequently need to provide the developer access to specific personal data about you.

This includes having access to your microphone, contact list, location, photographs, and health information. This information is frequently not essential for the program you are installing, and you might not feel comfortable disclosing it. Since virtually everything about you may be used as data, you should always have complete control over the information you provide. Examine the app's terms of service and take control of your privacy settings. Always be mindful of the information you are sharing and the recipients.

Cyberattacks on Family

Nowadays, everyone uses the internet and is vulnerable to cyber assault, from your kids downloading free games to you using online banking to your parents buying presents from online retailers.

Although you can't altogether remove all hazards associated with these internet activities, you can take steps to lessen them by teaching your family and yourself how to proactively avoid home security breaches by employing five fundamental security methods.

Five Ways in Which Family & Kids Get Cyberattacks

1. Phishing

Cyber security experts refer to the use of emails to try to deceive recipients into clicking on harmful links or files as "phishing." Kids may find it particularly challenging to recognize these since the emails frequently come across as coming from a reliable source.

Cybercriminals that create phishing emails and smishing messages keep an eye on kid-friendly websites and gather information like email addresses, the names of friends, and other details to customize their assaults, much like they do when spear phishing adults to access business networks.

2. Cyber Predators

These of all kinds, including sexual ones, frequently pursue children online nowadays, taking advantage of their naivety, lacking adult supervision, and their trust. Children may end up getting seduced into risky real-life encounters as a result of this. These predators are present on kid-friendly gaming and social media sites—the same online autonomous spaces encourage cyberbullying. There, parents may take advantage of children's creativity, even their naivety.

3. Password Attack

Since most individuals prefer using passwords as access verification tools, a hacker may find it appealing to try to crack one of your family members' passwords. There are several ways to accomplish this. The majority of the time, people retain copies of their passwords on sticky notes or pieces of paper lying around or on their desks.

An attacker has two options for obtaining the password: either by doing it themselves or by hiring an insider. A dictionary attack is another method a hacker might use to discover a user's password. A dictionary attack is a tactic that involves attempting to guess the target's password using widely used words and phrases, such as those found in a dictionary.

4. Accidentally Downloading Unknown Malware

Malware is computer software that is placed on a victim's computer without their knowledge or consent and causes harm to the system. This includes taking your computer hostage to be used in a "botnet," which slows down performance or collects personal information from it. People are frequently tricked by cybercriminals into downloading malware. One such ruse is phishing, but there are others as well, such as persuading victims to download software that seems to be games, which may be particularly seductive to kids.

5. Oversharing on Social Media

Social media is one of the most open platforms that is directly linked to your personal lives, but that doesn’t mean you share every detail on the platform. Like if you are travelling out of town, don’t give hackers a heads up that you are leaving by updating statutes; this will further lead them to believe that your handles are unattended. Maintaining public social media sites for your business or other purposes is acceptable but refrain from disclosing sensitive personal information there. Remove the strangers, alter your security settings to restrict who can view your information, or cease sharing private information on that profile, as appropriate.

Top 3 Ways to Keep Yourself Cyber Safe:

So, considering your family and yours’ safety, we have listed a few pointers which need to be followed to get protection from cyber attacks:

1. Maintain a strong and a secure password

Each member of your family should have a strong password, and you should make sure they all agree not to share it with anybody. A strong password should be as long and complicated as possible—ideally, it should be a phrase—and use a mix of lower-case, capital, numerals, and symbols.

2. Home internet router

Check that the router is password-protected and safe for your home internet connections. -If you need help with this or are unclear about how to proceed, contact your service provider.

3. Download securely

Verify the download's source to be sure it came from a reliable website. Be careful, as many rogue websites are sometimes "copy-cat" trustworthy.

Conclusion

In the end, we would like to conclude with one major step to protect your family from these cyber-attacks, by getting cyber insurance for family and add-on insurance for your family. This insurance can protect you from Cyberbullying, online fraud, and various kinds of data breaches. Your family, and especially children, can be seriously endangered by the internet. They may also have access to wonders that earlier generations could only dream about. But, make sure your kids are secure online, so they may benefit from its chances and delights while avoiding its risks.

Disclaimer: The above information is for illustrative purpose only. For more details, please refer to policy wordings and prospectus before concluding the sales.

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