We’re living in a time where lockdowns are the norm, human-interactions are limited and the often pilloried internet is more essential in daily life than ever. The digital space will never be the same after the COVID-pandemic. With YouTube being a dominant influencer in the digital space, we need to be ready for the challenges that come with these life-altering digital changes.
One of the most threatening digital challenges is online phishing, a digital scam where criminals pose as legitimate sources to try and get you to disclose personal data like login details and credit card numbers. These hackers usually pose as credible and trusted entities which make it even harder to spot a scam. It is absolutely pertinent for YouTubers to detect these scams and stay protected. Here are 6 ways to protect yourself from online phishing in the new normal.
1. Flag a suspicious scam
When you see a suspicious link, video or comment on YouTube, it’s important for you to flag it to the YouTube team for review. This will prevent criminals from targeting victims in future and keep the YouTube community safe. These comments could contain links that take users to phishing sites or counterfeit stores. You could also come across videos that promote downloads to malware content or push viewers to sign up for programs that promise abnormally quick growth in a few days. Suspicious video titles include: “Get 1 million views overnight on this secret website”.
2. Watch out for phishing URLs
Criminals create duplicate websites that look almost identical to the original website. The only difference is the duplicate website’s URL will have a slight discrepancy to the original website’s URL. For example, the original YouTube website URL is https://www.youtube.com/. But the duplicate YouTube website URL could be https://www.youtube.com/.
Watch out for strange numbers and jumbled letters in your URL. If you get an email from YouTube with a link that takes you to www.YouTube.com/tinyurl.com/y7eW instead of www.YouTube.com, there is definitely something fishy going on. Take the phishing quiz to understand how to detect phishing URLs better https://phishingquiz.withgoogle.com/
3. Protect your account password
As your YouTube account is linked to your Google account, you must ensure that you’ve taken all precautionary measures to safeguard your password. Turn on Password Alert for Chrome. If someone tries to log in to your Google account and enter your password on a non-Google site, you’ll get an alert and you can change your password straight away. You can also use Google’s Password Checkup extension to ensure none of your passwords were compromised in a data breach known to Google. When you try to login with a username and password that were involved in a data breach, you’ll receive an alert.
4. Make secure transactions on YouTube
Another way to check whether a website is secure, is to look on the upper left hand corner of the website for a padlock sign, also known as a Secure Sockets Layer. This sign ensures that the website is encrypted and can’t be read by third parties when you’re entering sensitive personal information. Do note that only half of all phishing websites don’t have a padlock sign so this isn’t a surefire strategy to determine online phishing. However, you can use this knowledge with other data to judge whether a suspicious link is safe or not.
5. Don’t entertain unfamiliar requests
YouTube emails only come from @youtube.com or @google.com addresses. YouTube never asks people for personal information like email addresses, birthdays or financial information so don’t give in and click on unfamiliar pop-ups, emails, messages or websites.
If you usually receive emails from susan@youtube.com but you notice a strange email from susan@youtubehelp.com, it could be a scam.
6. Get warnings about dangerous websites
Phishing and malware detection is turned on by default in your Chrome browser. When you open a suspicious website that looks similar to a YouTube page, you might see a warning that reads “The site ahead contains malware”, “Deceptive site ahead”, “The site ahead contains harmful programs”, “Did you mean <site name>” or “Is this the right site?”. Follow the warning signals and double-check the website’s authenticity.
It may take a few days to put these safety measures into practice on your YouTube channel, but the long-term benefits are immeasurable. Stay alert and spread the word to help others adapt to this changing digital era.
Interested in getting your YouTube channel seen by a huge audience? Get started here: www.flintzy.com