How to Protect Your Brand Online Using a VPN
Table of Content
1. Why do brands get stolen on the internet?
2. Quick tips for protecting your brand and identity
3. VPN can help you increase anonymity online
4. Additional security with file sharing
5. Be secured while being connected on public Wi-Fi
We live in the day and age where one’s identity can be easily stolen. This can be very devastating for the individual whose identity was stolen on the internet and may result in serious loss of money and energy due to the fact that recovering your online identity takes time. However, personal identities do not get often stolen but rather those of companies. In other words, it is brands that get stolen the most.
Why do brands get stolen on the internet?
One of the popular things why brand names get stolen is for the purpose of cybersquatting. Cybersquatters are people who make website on the domain name that is similar to the name of your brand in order to sell it to you for a lot of money afterwards. This type of online activity is illegal and the authorities are doing its best to prevent this from happening. However, with the technology progressing rapidly, thieves always find new ways to steal.
Another thing is also typo-squatting where someone uses a possible different spelling of your brand name and makes a URL with it. Therefore, if you are using a brand name that can easily be misspelt, you might come upon such a nuisance.
Other occurrences of brand name theft include regular things such as someone pretending to be you in order to achieve something, promoting their own business or using it for any other selfish reason.
Quick tips for protecting your brand and identity
Before we proceed to explaining how to maximize protection with VPN, here are a few useful tips to raise awareness of your internet behavior.
- You need to keep all the passwords to yourself and possibly remember them by heart. Consider changing passwords often and using numbers, signs, lowercase and uppercase letters in your password.
- Get educated about harmful websites. Most of them are software download or pornography websites. If there are too many popups on a website with suspicious offers, you should definitely avoid websites like that.
- The process of buying should always be conducted via trusted websites. If a website which is not trusted offers you a product to buy, avoid it immediately.
- Google Alerts can help you monitor the usage of your brand name online. This is a very powerful tool and combined with Google Analytics can also help you with advertising your brand online.
- Check all settings on all websites where you have an account in order to achieve maximum security. For example, Facebook posts can have visibility set to public which means that everyone can see them. Unless you want everyone to see your posts and information about you, you should keep it private.
- Use a VPN. This requires thorough explanation, which is presented below.
VPN can help you increase anonymity online
By increasing your level of anonymity, you will feel much safer while surfing and developing the name of your brand online. Anonymity is increased due to the fact that you will not be using your IP address. In fact, you will be given a completely dedicated IP and many other factors will benefit to successfully hiding your information online.
Therefore, all of the information that your IP unveils to the hackers and thieves lurking in the dark corners of the internet will be hidden underneath. Imagine VPN as a big concrete fence around the house – people passing by would not be able to take a look at its residents, let alone be able to enter that house and steal from it. This metaphor of a big house and a concrete fence can actually be applied to all the other things that VPN offers – it makes you more secure and anonymous.
Additional security with file sharing
Building a brand online involves a lot of file sharing and without appropriate encryption of those files, you will be completely exposed to the threats. Using a VPN means having and end2end encryption where the only people who will be able to see the shared files and folders are the one who sent them and the one who received them. This type of encryption is slowly becoming a part of many chat applications, but the best one is provided by VPN.
There are many programs that are very simple to use and that can intercept files being sent or received over the internet. In fact, there are government surveillance programs such as PRISM, which can basically use all information about you from Google and Google is required to provide such information. Of course, this does not mean that only information will be given away, but all the data that is being sent or received can be intercepted.
Be secured while being connected on public Wi-Fi
One way to have your identity stolen is by accessing a public Wi-Fi. Public Wi-Fis are a very easy target to hackers and all they need is the right software which will crack all your passwords and completely own your identity. Therefore, if your brand is exposed on public Wi-Fis, such as those in a bar, restaurant or any other kind of public place, you are in great risk.
Luckily, this is yet another instance where VPN comes in and saves the day with the layer of protection that is added when accessing to the internet this way as well. In other words, you do not have to fear anything while sitting in a cafe and connecting to the internet from there.
To sum up, identity theft can be a dangerous thing and many people go through a very difficult period if that happens to them. There were cases where the damage was never really fixed and the stolen brand was never returned. In order to prevent that from happening, you should be more aware of your behavior on the internet and consider using a virtual private network, such as LimeVPN for the purpose of maximizing the protection, raising the level of anonymity, introducing encryption and safely connecting on public Wi-Fis.
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Rachael Chapman
A Complete gamer and a Tech Geek. Brings out all her thoughts and love in writing blogs on IOT, software, technology etc
