The importance of safety no longer only pertains to our physical self. In today’s world of technology, we also need to keep ourselves safe online.

Everyday people have their identities stolen and put their lives in danger by sharing too much information on the web. But these issues can easily be avoided if you follow simple safety tips when using the Internet.

Here are a few ideas on how to keep your personal information personal online:

• Be overly private. You don’t need to be a friend to everyone on the Internet. Set the privacy and security settings on your various accounts to your comfort level for information sharing and review them periodically, because some sites change the options frequently. Limiting your information is safe. Make sure that your social media sites don’t give away the answers to the security questions you use for your online banking account, such as pet’s name, best friend, or city where you were born.
• Research before acting. Be wary and cautious about offers that sound too good to be true, requests for personal information, and sites that ask you to act immediately.
• Don’t click it. Cybercriminals can target you with emails that appear to come from companies you do business with or social media sites where you have accounts. Clicking links in these emails may take you to a site that is a clone of a legitimate site for the purpose of capturing your userID and password. If you receive such an email, it is always safer to avoid clicking a link in the email message, and instead go directly to the company web site to perform the needed task. Criminals may learn your “likes” from social media, and then create carefully targeted email attacks (called “spear phishing”).
• Things to keep to yourself. Keep your address, phone numbers, and credit card details to yourself.
• Make your passwords strong and long. Having symbols, numbers, uppercase, and lowercase letters can all help make a more secure password. More advice at How to Create Secure Passwords and Safe Passwords.
• New account=new password. If you have the same password for different accounts on the Internet, you make it simple for cybercriminals to access them all at once! Create a different password for each account you create.
• Make a list. Making a list of all your userIDs and passwords can help avoid a lot of hassle when you forget your unique passwords. But keep the list in a safe place.

Related article: Tips for Social Networking Safety

A good resource: staysafeonline.org