Practice few secure steps to save yourself from being a victim of data breach.

• Do not share your personal information on social media sites – anything from your phone number, home address and birthday. Firstly, no social media site compels you to fill all the personal information, secondly, if your account is public or maybe open to friends of friends then your personal information can be picked up and use fraudulently without you being aware of it!
• Do not give your Social Security number or your Card details to others over the phone or through mails especially when you have not initiated the call or the mail.
• Keep your home mail box locked.
• Always create unique passwords with combinations that include uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and other symbols. Make them atleast about 8 characters long.
• Do not keep documents containing your personal information out in the open. Keep them locked and safe or shred them.
• Have separate passwords for your banks and social sites and change them at regular intervals.
  Install firewall in your systems and keep them updated
• Install anti-virus and anti-spyware programs in your PCs, tablets and smartphones and keep them updated
• Don’t download or make purchase over Wi-Fi networks which are not secured especially when you are there in a Café’ or a Hotel.
• Enable passwords for Wi-Fi.
• Always change the vendor supplied passwords.
• Do not open emails from unknown senders. Never click or an attachment in an email you don’t trust. These attachments carry nasty viruses, malwares which are planted in your computer to steal your personal information, credit card numbers, passwords etc. This is also known as phishing.
• Always block pop-ups. They are a form of online advertising, which is there to capture your email address.
• When shopping online, shop from a site that is known and trusted. Also make sure, it is a secure website, look for the lock symbol or ‘https’ in the website url to indicate the transactions are secure.
• Gift Coupons, Great Discounts or announcing that you have won a lottery online are all part of scams to fool you to share your personal data. Do not trust too good to be true offers for they are not true. They are there to steal your identity.
• In case of lost or stolen cards report to your bank immediately.
• Don’t feel embarrassed to talk to your family, friends or banks if you have doubts about data security.
• Insist on knowing about the privacy details of your personal information from the banks, ecommerce or social sites. In the wake of latest LinkedIn data breach, it is upto you now to stand and demand for your privacy rights before it is too late.