How to stay safe and anonymous online in 2021

Hi everyone! falkensmaze here and in this blog post, I’ll teach you everything you need to know to keep hackers and governments stay out of your business while you surf online!

# Why should you even care?

• I am going to give you my personal opinion on why you should care about your privacy online.
• We’ll start with why you should try to stay safe online, *since you got nothing to hide*. I am guessing you are an adult or a minor with access to social-media .
• First of all, social media accounts. I am pretty sure you don’t want any bad actor to plant account-stealing malware on your device and wake up with all your passwords,emails and 2FA options changed!

• Second , I will take the guess that you sometimes or maybe always choose the online payment option when you order something from the internet. If that’s the case, please know that that payment information has been saved somewhere in your phone and it is very easy for attackers to access that important information! Even if you ticked the “Do not save payment information” box on the site you’ve ordered your products , trust me, they still save. But let’s say they don’t, we live in an era where everything is online including your bank. Your bank account can be easily stolen by good hackers.

• Third of all, privacy! Even if you say you’ve got nothing to hide I am pretty sure somewhere on your phone, weather that’s your messages, gallery or call log , you have something that only you want to be aware of!

# How to keep safe online

• Now that you understand the risks of the internet a little better , it’s time for me to show you how to stay safe online. Let’s introduce you to the known cyber-attacks in the wild!

# Phishing

• Phishing is a type of social engineering attack often used to steal user data, including login credentials and credit card numbers. It occurs when an attacker, masquerading as a trusted entity, dupes a victim into opening an email, instant message, or text message.

• Weather you have received an email, SMS, or even a call, they will always ask you to click on a link to sign in. Always check the URL, which is the link in the top bar of your browser.

• Also whenever you receive an email, check the email address from the sender.

# Malware Attacks

• Malware stands for malicious software and is, you guessed it, software that tries it’s best to steal information for you OR make your device do things it was never meant to do!
• There is an easy way to protect from malware. The first one is that you should NOT , and I really mean this, you should NOT install unknown software. Also , if the publisher of the application instructs you to turn off your anti-virus , DO NOT do it. There is no reason for a developer to make you turn off the anti-virus unless they’re trying to infect you!
• And the other way to protect you from malware is to install a trustable, good anti-virus. If you’re on Linux, you don’t have to worry about antiviruses but if you are on Windows, the best one is either MalwareBytes and Bitdefender Antivirus Plus.

# Anonymity & Privacy

• This is essentially an optional but recommended step! In the following lines I will be explaining -> VPNs, Proxies and T.O.R

# VPNs

• While VPNs are a good tool to keep private and even somewhat anonymous , picking a provider should be done with caution! Before I instruct you on what VPN provider you should pay for your privacy, let’s understand how VPN or Virtual Private Network(s) work!

Source : How Do VPNs Work? VPN Encryption & Tunneling Explained (top10vpn.com)

• This image borrowed from top10vpn.com should explain quite well the concept of a VPN . It basically creates a private, encrypted tunnel from your ISP to the VPN server! That means that whenever use your VPN , if for instance you go to netflix.com , that request will be sent first to the VPN server , then the VPN server will send it to the destination , and finally the request coming from the destination will be sent to the VPN server, and the server will send it back to you! So the destination site/server will think that you are the VPN server!
• This should be amazing but the downsides are that you have to trust the VPN provider just like you trust your ISP. Meaning that even if the provider tells you that your data is safe, you’ll never know that’s true! Try to look for No-Log keeping providers, that include : ExpressVPN , SurfShark, NordVPN, HMA.

# Proxies

• Proxies are an alternative to VPNs , however they are not as safe as a VPN. Here’s how they work:

• See how there’s no encrypted tunnel? Yeah, that is the biggest downside. Meaning that anyone that is standing either on your end or on the proxy server’s end , can read through your data! Another downside is that you can only use this on your browsers, OR you can use this on apps that support proxies however, you’ll have to manually set your Proxy server and port in the application’s network settings ! On Linux, there is a software called proxychains that allows a user to surf the internet using proxies exactly how they would if they were to use a VPN!

# T.O.R

• The last , but probably the best choice is T.O.R! The Onion Router. Tor is a little more complicated and it will require an entire blog post for you to completely understand it but here’s a scheme to make it easier for you !

• Okay so basically, you are the exitmap and you are first entering the static relay which is the relay that gives you access to the internal Tor network! Once you entered the network you’ll ‘hop’ on some nodes! Basically you’ll make connections to random servers or computers that are in the Tor network! And finally, you’ll exit the Tor network through the most dangerous relay which is the Exit Guard! The reason I say that is because the person in charge of the Exit Guard can manage to see your data! Even tough that is hard because they’ll have to go through every node you’ve been through it is still possible! However, TOR is by FAR the best anonymity tool out there but there are two BIG downsides to it! The first on being that it’s very slow and the second one is that it is blacklisted by most companies! So if you don’t care about these cons, TOR is all yours!

— falkensmaze