You might not know this, but when you visit a website you’re giving up a lot of information about you and your internet connection.
Just take a look at how much information you’re actually giving up just by visiting a simple reverse IP lookup website.
You might not think that information such as your location is a problem but the information above is only the tip of the iceberg which is why you need to know how to hide your identity online.
The sophistication of hackers have continued to evolve over the years but it’s truly scary to know that one of the simplest think that a hacker can do is set up a free public WiFi hotspot and act as the internet service provider (ISP).
When a hacker is the ISP and you connect to that WiFi hotspot you are essentially allowing that hacker to look at every single page, every single piece of data including your email, facebook and even banking login information and possibly even your credit card number.
Just take a look at this image where a white hat hacker shows just how easy it is to capture credit cred numbers by setting up their own free public WiFi hotspot:
Scared yet? You should be… getting hacked, especially when using sketchy free public WiFi, is a very real threat and one that you should not take lightly.
How To Hide Your Online Identity To Keep Yourself Safe Online
The good news is that protecting yourself by hiding your online identity is not hard to do.
Here are a few ways to stay safe:
- Never use public WiFi hotspots (in today’s hyper-connected world I don’t find this one to be very feasible)
- Always make is that people should never connect to a hotspot when you cannot verify the owner of the hotspot
- Your best best is to use a Pro level VPN
What I mean is if you’re sitting at a coffee shop and you see a free unsecured WiFi hotspot just double check with the coffee shop that they in fact are the ones behind the hotspot.
Same goes when you’re in an airport, which is a favorite spot for hackers to set up with all of the business travelers and people taking care of important info and paying last minutes bills, etc.
Even if you can verify the identity the owner of the WiFi hotspot I still highly recommend that you up your level of security with the use a a VPN.
VPN stands for virtual private network and what it does it create a secure and encrypted connection between you and their secure and trusted server in another location.
By establishing this connection you are able to create a virtually hack proof tunnel between your computer or mobile device and a know safe and secure server connected to the Internet.
Knowing the dangers of public WiFi is the first step to hiding your identity online in order to keep your identity and your sensitive information safe and sound.
Stay safe my friends, stay safe.
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