Beware, These 5 Things Can Happen to You When You’re Online

‘You never know how it feels until it happens to you’ can be used to best describe an ugly online experience. We keep hearing stories of people who are victims of online fraud, fall prey to cyberbullying and get trolled on the internet. Most times, we dismiss such incidents thinking it cannot happen to us. However, fact is, these incidents can happen to anyone.

It sounds scary but nobody is 100 percent safe on the internet. Each time you’re online, you expose yourself to threats you didn’t even know existed. Let’s look at five of the most popular ones:

#1 Financial fraud

Online shopping, ticketing and bill payments have greatly simplified your life, but there’s an ugly side to this too. That involves your card details or online banking credentials getting compromised and unauthorised transactions taking place from your account. Becoming a victim of financial fraud is nothing short of a nightmare.

#2 Phishing

You get an e-mail that appears to have come from a legitimate source and end up sharing sensitive personal data such as banking credentials, card numbers and passwords. Before you know it, someone has already withdrawn money from your account. Bad news. You’ve been phished. And before you pat yourself on the back because no such thing has happened to you, let’s tell you that even the best of people have fallen prey to this.

#3 Identity theft

This is probably the worst thing that can happen to anyone. Picture this: a scammer gets hold of all your sensitive personal information and then uses it to his advantage to obtain credit, apply for a loan or claim other financial benefits, all in your name. Scary, isn’t it?

#4 Cyber bullying

Cyber bullying is bullying that happens using electronic technology. It can happen through e-mails, social media, texts or chats. You know are being cyber bullied when you come across rumours or fake news about you on social media, receive mean texts or find embarrassing photos or videos of you online. It can take a great toll on you emotionally.

#5 Damage to personal reputation

There are a lot of social media accounts made with the sole intention of trolling others. They come after you for the slightest reason and provoke you to react to them. Engaging with such accounts only hurts your personal reputation.

HDFC ERGO knows how distressing cyber attacks, and the consequent financial and reputation loss, can be. That’s why they have created the E@Secure Insurance Policy to protect you. This policy covers various risks such as unauthorised online transactions, phishing and email spoofing, e-extortion, identity theft, damage to e-reputation and cyber bullying. It also pays your legal fees in the event of any dispute arising out of the risks covered under the policy.

That’s not all. HDFC ERGO is also celebrating Oct 21 to 27 as ‘Cyber Security Awareness Week’. This is a part of #HackSeLado, an initiative aimed at promoting cyber safety awareness among people. To this end, they’ve also come up with this handy guide.

Remember: Just like you, hackers and scammers too are getting smarter by the day. So while you use the internet for virtually everything, it also makes sense to secure yourself by buying the E@Secure Insurance Policy.