Recognizing and protecting yourself from suspicious links

Have you ever wondered how many links you click every single day? It happens so many times that we don’t give this any thought. You can find links everywhere – emails, videos, news sites, Facebook, and so forth. It has become our habit to click on them, just like a coffee in the morning. Nevertheless, such tendencies are not all positive. Recent studies have shown that hackers are putting effort into turning our actions against us.

There were some reports a few months back about online espionage groups which were trying to steal information about users on the likes of Facebook and Whatsapp. Using the old link phishing method, the criminals managed to get their hands on text messages, contacts, browser history, etc. When you think about it, this sort of thing happened just by clicking a link. We believe that it is our duty to remind you again how important it is to notice shady addresses.

Dangerous link

According to recent studies, the majority of the internet surfers are not very good at distinguishing suspicious links. Almost half of Facebook users, and those who have emails click these URLs despite the fact that they know of a potential threat. Here is when you need to have doubts:

• Intentional spelling mistakes. It is one of the oldest tricks in the books, the so-called accidents in domain names. As soon as you see something like www.keybordworld.com, be wary. Changing letters to symbols, like 1 to l, or S to a dollar sign is also popular.
• HTTP. If you open a link and the letter “S” is missing at the end of the HTTP, you are connecting to the version without any protection. That is why we advise you to take extra precaution when dealing with this kind of a link. Sure, connecting to HTTPS won’t ensure the safety, yet between the two, an absent letter “S” is one of the best indicators of potential danger.
• URL shorteners. The likes of goo.gl or bitly.com have become popular with Twitter. Character limitation made it difficult to post the link and the message. Nowadays, these shorteners are more popular, and they provide a great opportunity to make trustworthy people click all kinds of links.

Protecting yourselves

There are plenty of different tools to help find out if an address is OK to click. But let’s be honest, you won’t have the time nor desire to play with them. People press the mouse button by instinct. And if they don’t care about checking for the obvious indicators, they will certainly not bother with taking that extra step for safety. That is why you need to find a permanent solution. Nothing beats NovaVPN in this aspect.

It won’t matter what links you are clicking. We will ensure that all your information is encrypted and in good hands. You will be able to surf without any worries, and even if some potential threat does come in your way, a virtual private network software will redirect it to another server, protecting your information.