By ‘Sola Fagorusi
Fear. Flight. Fight. Any of these are natural reactions to any external threats; the adrenaline secreted by the adrenal gland ensures that the human body responds accordingly when in a situation of danger. For countries that plan based on data, there is available information by the security apparatus of such countries on neighbourhoods where the fear/flight/fight responses are triggered regularly. Given the quantum leap in the number of people who daily depend on the internet for survival, it is the fastest growing neighbourhood in the world. It is a single big community without borders and devoid of discrimination. From Acapulco in Mexico to Kabul in Afghanistan, Cape Town in South Africa, street crimes occur in neighbourhoods in these cities in sometimes dazzling proportion. While people step out daily to eke a living, some step out daily to steal a living! Armed with cudgels and other dangerous weapons, there are young men and women who stroll neighbourhoods in some of these aforementioned cities tomake life unbearable for others.
The higher the population and presence of unorganised housing, the higher the chances of crime. The internet is this new neighbourhood given how fast it has grown and the increased activities on the platform. It is a social community especially as social networks have helped to cause a rapid user population expansion in the last half a decade. By the end of 2014, it is estimated that three billion people will be internet users across the world. It is a remarkable improvement for a planet of about 7.1 billion people. As of 2005, there was about one billion internet users globally, the figure did not double until 2010. One of the gateways to the internet is an email address. Safety online usually starts with the safety of one’s email address. Nigeria is the only African country on the list of top ten countries by internet usage.
Of late, there has been a massive attempt at hacking email addresses. Various forms and strategies are being deployed by internet criminals to take over control of other people’s mail addresses. It is a strategic choice given that almost all internet users depends on an email address for several functions. Social media accounts ownership is impossible without ownership of an email address. Bank notifications are also sent to email addresses. When an email is hacked and the user loses control, it could mean that the new hand in charge of the email now has unfettered access to the history of the victim. Phishing remains the most used approach by conmen in hacking into email addresses. Here, the original account holder is directed to another page and is asked to provide his or her user name and password and with that, he or she loses control of the account. The often used one now is a spam email that looks harmless and from credible banking institutions. Recipients are told to find attached ‘Telex copy of fun transfer for your perusal.’ An attempt to open the attachment leads to a request for a re-entry of one’s mail address and password. Once done, the user becomes a casualty. Gmail, offered by Google currently leads the pack with almost 450 million active users. Outlook and Yahoo are next on the list of the world’s most used email platforms. The latter has about 400 million users worldwide. Gmail’s leadership is in part courtesy of its deep integration with other existing Google services.
It is expected that 2014 will end with 2.5 billion email users worldwide. The danger that some accounts will be compromised thus continues to grow in this cyber neighbourhood. A few tips about protection would therefore suffice. Users can protect themselves by preventing the use of the same password on multiple platforms. The idea of having a single password for accounts on Facebook, twitter, email address et cetera is not a right one. It is one of the simplest safety measures even though what it means is that one’s memory would have to be continually tested to remember all the passwords. Password managers like Lastpass enables one to simply have a master password and keep the several passwords for different platforms safely somewhere without having to remember all of them.
It is also fine to use a password that is not easy to remember. Passwords should be a combination of words, letters, symbols and punctuations. It makes it difficult to have one’s mail address hacked. The world’s most used password is – ‘123456’ followed next by – ‘Password’. Any account holder with a simple password like this is simply waiting to be hacked. With Gmail, a user can create a 2-step verification check that requires a code sent to one’s mobile number is entered when one attempts logs in from another computer.The regular monitoring of IP addresses of the computers from where log-ins to the Gmail account happened from is also an excellent way to see the activity details of the email addresses and make necessary amendments where a suspicious activity is noticed.
Any web link that sends one to another address is likely a suspicious type and should be checked with care. Altering the security question and password from the one provided by the email service is also a good way to stay safe online. Social media platforms are also hacked. A good preventive strategy is to stay away from provocative videos and images given their embarrassment values and capacity for compromise. There are also suggestions that changing one’s mail address regularly, possibly once every six months is also a good security habit.
Not all emails are believable. That mail saying a friend one has not heard from in a while is suddenly stranded in Dubai and needs cash is likely a lie and simply a fraudster at work. It can be really frustrating having to deal with loss of an email account. According to McAfee, the world’s economy reported loses more than $500 billion to cybercrime annually. Cybercrime is real and as the world continues to get networked more, it will become graver leaving individuals prone to possible losses whenever precaution is ignored.
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‘Sola Fagorusi
Sola Fagorusi is a youth development advocate, freelance writer, accomplished debater cum coach. The Obafemi Awolowo University graduate has about 10 years experience in social entrepreneurship which straddles leadership, good governance cum anti-corruption and adolescent reproductive health. The Leap Africa alumnus is also a trained peer educator, a DESPLAY alumnus and co-facilitator. For 2 years now, he has been a technical consultant and lead judge on the Intra-Faith Peace Youth TV Debate Project facilitated by Youngstars Foundation and the British High Commission. To read his full profile, click here.
