Have you ever felt like there’s danger everywhere around you on the internet? Disinformation, AI-generated content, phishing, scams — all these are constantly in your face when you scroll social media.
In times of heightened risk, knowing what to trust isn’t just difficult; sometimes, it’s plain impossible. Wars and natural disasters around the world spark heated discussions, as well as welcome more false claims paraded as facts. Once people become sensitive, scammers are more than happy to take advantage.
Let’s understand why disinformation happens, how it turns into misinformation, why this is a perfect spawning ground for attackers, and how to stay safe during global instability.
Disinformation, scams, and fraud amid global instability
Fake news, propaganda, and other forms of disinformation are extremely common during trying times. Whether it’s global warming threatening to leave thousands of people unhoused, or armed conflicts threatening lives, news headlines are guaranteed to be made up or inverted to deceive readers around the world. They mislead with certain intentions: political propaganda, product marketing, or others.
Once people share false information, internationally or not, it becomes misinformation. Sometimes, an individual has no idea they’re telling lies — they could genuinely believe it’s true and not understand their mistake because they’re vulnerable, sensitive, or want a sense of belonging.
In this case, modern technology plays a big role in disinformation. New generative AI models can create real-looking images, videos, and audio files. In the past, it was all about manual image editing, and you could instantly spot the errors; now, artificial intelligence makes everyone believe even the biggest nonsense.
The result includes donating money, spreading the word, and even sharing personal information without caution. Throughout the past several years, bad actors have increasingly pretended to be someone else to steal money, hack accounts, and sell sensitive data online. So, how does one protect themselves?
Establishing proper cybersecurity practices
To stay safe amid the global panic, it’s important to incorporate proper cybersecurity practices in your daily life. This means receiving information from credible sources, browsing the net safely, using MFA, learning how to avoid phishing, using unique passwords, and more.
Browse safely
Knowing how to use the internet safely is vital in today’s world. To avoid disinformation, do not trust everything you see online. Even a realistic video can be completely fake. When you’re doubting something, investigate it more. In general, subscribing to the original, genuine sources is better than getting news from social media.
At the same time, try not to share everything about yourself online. Do not put your date of birth, full name, or similar in the account nickname. It is also recommended to make your accounts private, especially if you have photos of your face there. Review other privacy settings, where possible.
Utilize a VPN with a scam and fraud alert — it will hide your IP and browsing preferences from the service providers, granting you a safe browsing experience. This is also helpful if you are using public networks often.
Enable multi-factor authentication
Multi-factor authentication, or MFA for short, requires the individual logging into the account to input an additional code apart from the original password. This code arrives either on the mobile phone or email tied to the account, meaning that hackers can’t log in without having access to them, even if they have the password.
Turning on MFA creates an additional wall between you and the hackers, preventing them from accessing your sensitive files, messages, contacts, and even funds.
Spot phishing
Phishing is often used by scammers to get you to click on a link or open an attachment. Most of the time, these are viruses created to infiltrate your phone or computer system and steal your data or hold it for ransom. In these unstable times, phishing emails and SMS can be even more dangerous and spread propaganda.
Usually, they are unexpected, pushy, and come from supposedly big companies. Streaming services, banking, social media representatives, and utility companies with big names have been used for phishing for years. Check the message for links, attachments, typos, incorrect
addresses, and weird numbers. Do not click the links or download anything — legitimate companies would never ask you for that.
Use unique passwords
Do you have one universal password across all accounts? Maybe you add random numbers or special characters to make each one more or less different, but that’s still not enough. Without unique passwords, hackers will be able to sneak into your accounts in under a minute, thanks to modern tools.
A password manager can be useful if you can’t remember everything: this service generates unique, complex passwords for each account. Then, it saves and locks it in an encrypted cloud to input whenever needed, so hackers can’t get their hands on your sensitive data.
Staying safe in the middle of uncertainty
Hackers, scammers, and disinformation are prevalent during the global crisis. Yet, that doesn’t mean you have to stay vulnerable. Hopefully, the guide above helped you shield yourself from fake news and bad actors.
