Safe online in ten habits
You do not need to be an expert. Almost every scam has the same weak spot: someone reacting fast to a message that came out of nowhere. These ten habits remove that weak spot.
Read them once, pick three you do not do yet and start with those. The rest follows.
What you do
- Go yourself, do not click.Bank, government, parcel service, shop: open the app or type the address. A message is a reason to look, never the way there.
- Urgency is the tell.“Within 24 hours”, “right now”, “or else…”. The more urgency, the less real. Put it down and look again tomorrow.
- A bank never asks you to move money.Not to a safe account, not as a test, not over the phone. Money in your account is already safe.
- Codes are signatures.SMS codes, WhatsApp codes, QR codes from the banking app: never pass them on or show them. To nobody, with no story.
- A different password everywhere, and a password manager.One leaked password must not open your whole life. A password manager remembers them; you remember one.
- Two-step verification on.For e-mail, WhatsApp, DigiD, bank, social media. Then a stolen password alone is not enough.
- Pay with protection where you do not know someone.Credit card, PayPal, pay-after-delivery or Gelijk Oversteken. Prepaying by transfer only to people you trust.
- Call back via the number you look up yourself.Never via the number on your screen or in the message.
- Agree a family word.One word you ask for with every money request by chat or phone. Costs nothing, stops friend-in-need fraud.
- Check before you explain the doubt away.Paste the domain, number or address into the checker. Thirty seconds, and you know what others already saw.
Questions people ask
Which habit makes the biggest difference?
The first: go yourself, do not click. Almost all phishing, parcel texts and government fraud fall away with it.
I have an elderly relative. Where do I start?
With three agreements: the bank never asks you to move money, always call me first, and a family word for money requests. Also set a daily transfer limit in the banking app.
Do I need antivirus?
On Windows the built-in Defender is good enough if you install updates. More important than software are the habits above: most scams use no virus, they use you.
Unsure about a website, number or e-mail?
Paste it into the checker. Thirty seconds, and you know what others already saw.
Check it nowPaste it into the checker. Thirty seconds, and you know what others already saw.
Read next
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