7 Online Safety Tips for College Students
Heading back to campus soon? Here are seven tips that will get your digital house in order and keep you safe online this semester.
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Parents naturally worry about their kids leaving for college – their physical safety high on the list. But in the digital world, college students are at risk, too, in the forms of identity theft and online fraud.
According to the FTC's "Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book," released in February, much of the crime revolves around fraudulent wire transfers or attacks on credit cards and gift cards. The FTC found reports of fraud around student loans increased by 119% in 2018. In addition, 43% of younger people ages 20 to 29 reported losing money to fraud compared with only 15% of those ages 70 to 79.
The good news: There are many practical steps students can take to protect themselves online.
It starts with some real-life common sense. "Student should physically lock down their laptops when they are not in their dorm rooms, and keep sensitive information, such as Social Security cards and birth certificates, locked in a safe," says Paige Hanson, chief of identity education for Norton LifeLock.
Next on the online-safety list? Read on.
ProPrivacy's Walsh says students should watch their Instagram, Facebook messages, and emails very closely. Especially during back-to-school season, scammers often send fake messages that insist a purchase was made when it really wasn't. Scammers are very adept at manipulating emotions and getting people to respond and click, he says.
Students also should do everything possible to protect their email accounts because once they get compromised, scammers will have access to the passwords on any number of their personal online accounts, Norton LifeLock's Hanson adds. "It's always best to stop and think, 'Should I be getting a confirmation link?'" Hanson says. "If you aren't sure, refer it to the school's IT department, and they can check it out. The last thing you want is for the scammers to have the ability to reset all your passwords."
While it's important to protect emails, scammers also prey on students with text messages. Texting has become the main form of communication for young people, so they are very susceptible, Hanson says. "The likelihood of students responding to text messages is high," she says. "It can be for any routine item, such as notifications that medicines are ready, as well as appointment and shipping reminders."
"Evil twin" hotspots are Wi-Fi access sites set up by hackers that mimic legitimate hotspots, including the service set identifier (SSID). ProPrivacy's Walsh offers two tips to students looking to protect themselves: Install a VPN, which is typically inexpensive though well worth the cost since it will encrypt all communications. Second, don't set up devices to "auto join" Wi-Fi networks.
Young people are under a lot of pressure to become "influencers" on social media. While there's great allure in being an Internet personality, ProPrivacy's Walsh says students should think twice. They can also do some easy things to safeguard their online identities, such as not tagging themselves or friends in photos and not letting people know where they are. Tipping off criminals that they are out of town is almost asking for a dorm or apartment to get robbed.
Norton LifeLock's Hanson advises students to delete personal information, like their birthdays, on social media. Once scammers have a birth date, she says, they can use that information to access additional accounts since so many people use their birthdays as a password. While birthday greetings are a genuinely nice part of Facebook, Hanson advises students to be aware of the downside.
Already students are finding themselves inundated with back-to-school offers for everything from new laptops, smartphones, and tablets to dorm furniture. ProPrivacy's Walsh says students need to keep an eye on the URLs of the sites they access. Only do business with an HTTPS site that has a grey lock to the left of the URL. The HTTPS stands for hypertext transfer protocol secure. An HTTPS site prevents man-in-the-middle attacks in which the attacker seeks to get between users and the sites they are accessing.
Norton LifeLock's Hanson adds that while looking for HTTPS makes sense and is a good general best practice, hackers now have access to the same certificates and can set up fake HTTPS sites. As a safety measure, before clicking on a promotion for that new laptop, students should go on the company's website and make sure it is offering that promotion. If it is, it's better to buy the product via the main website rather than the link received in an email.
Banks and financial institutions are using two-factor authentication (2FA) practically as a standard today. 2FA offers a second layer of authentication rather than simply a password. ProPrivacy's Walsh says students should look for an option on their banks' websites where they can opt for 2FA, which in many cases is a PIN number that's texted to them. Also, most websites, such as Google and Facebook, let people set up a 2FA option in settings on their browsers. And if students can spend the money, they can set up 2FA with a YubiKey, which start at about $45. YubiKeys are physical tokens people can carry on their keychains that are used as a second factor to authenticate computers and smartphones for numerous apps and services.
Norton LifeLock's Hanson says students should install software updates as soon as they are made available. Software updates are delivered to both operating systems and individual software programs. With these updates come new features, removal of dated features, updated drivers, bug fixes, and, most importantly, security hole fixes. In addition, it's important to run backups. Students have many options for backing up files, including external hard drives, removable media such as USB storage sticks, DVDs, and the cloud.
Norton LifeLock's Hanson says students should install software updates as soon as they are made available. Software updates are delivered to both operating systems and individual software programs. With these updates come new features, removal of dated features, updated drivers, bug fixes, and, most importantly, security hole fixes. In addition, it's important to run backups. Students have many options for backing up files, including external hard drives, removable media such as USB storage sticks, DVDs, and the cloud.
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Parents naturally worry about their kids leaving for college – their physical safety high on the list. But in the digital world, college students are at risk, too, in the forms of identity theft and online fraud.
According to the FTC's "Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book," released in February, much of the crime revolves around fraudulent wire transfers or attacks on credit cards and gift cards. The FTC found reports of fraud around student loans increased by 119% in 2018. In addition, 43% of younger people ages 20 to 29 reported losing money to fraud compared with only 15% of those ages 70 to 79.
The good news: There are many practical steps students can take to protect themselves online.
It starts with some real-life common sense. "Student should physically lock down their laptops when they are not in their dorm rooms, and keep sensitive information, such as Social Security cards and birth certificates, locked in a safe," says Paige Hanson, chief of identity education for Norton LifeLock.
Next on the online-safety list? Read on.
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