What Is Cyberstalking and How to Protect Yourself From It | Total Security

Cyberstalking is one of the most common crimes in the world. Cyberstalkers harass and intimidate victims online, ruining their lives.

Technology has changed our lives. Thanks to the Internet, we can communicate with friends living overseas, share pictures of a gorgeous vacation and use convenient applications that make life easier.  Some people use the same technology to harass and intimidate others.

What is cyberstalking?

Cyberstalking is "the use of the Internet to harass or harass a person, group of people, or organization."

Most often (but not always) cyberstalkers pursue victims: they track their location and activities in the virtual and real world. There are cases when criminals installed GPS devices on victims' cars, installed spyware on their smartphones, obsessively monitored their movements through social networks.

Cyberstalkers may have another goal - to intimidate the victim or make their life unbearable. For example, a criminal can track a person through social networks, mock him, send threatening messages, or even hack mail and communicate with the victim's contacts (and this can be both friends and family, and bosses). Cyberstalkers can fake photos or write threatening private messages on social media. Often they also spread rumours or false accusations and even post intimate photos and videos (sometimes fabricated) out of revenge. Cybercriminals can steal a victim's personal data to create a fake social media profile or blog.

So now you know who cyber criminals are. Now a couple of words about their victims. Perhaps the statistics will surprise you a little: most of the victims are women, but from 20 to 40% of the victims are still men.

Cyberstalking is much more than social media surveillance. Its main feature and purpose are to intimidate the victim.

How to avoid becoming a victim of a cyberstalker

Try typing your first and last name into Google or Yandex and find out what information a cyberstalker can get about you on the Web. You might be amazed at how easy it is to track you - you can probably find your home address, phone number, and other personal information on the Internet.

Try to find out how much information an attacker can collect about you by gaining access to the pages of your friends and relatives. For example, he can find out which bar you were in, who was there with you, or where and with whom you plan to spend your next vacation.

You may even find posts on your behalf made by someone else: a fake blog or an ad with your phone number and address.

Cybercriminals always start by looking for any personal information about the victim. This means that you need to make the data as less as accessible as possible.

How to protect yourself from cyberstalkers

Dig into your privacy settings

Start by protecting your data. Pay attention to your pages on social networks: restrict access to them if you have not already done so.

Make sure your posts can only be seen by friends or a specific circle of people you know.

Do not allow websites to display your home address and phone number. It might even be worth creating a separate email for social media.

If you want to share your phone number or other personal information with a friend, do so in a private message, not in a public post.

Do not indicate your real name on social networks - use a pseudonym, preferably without specifying your gender.

Do not indicate your date of birth and other data in the social network profile if these fields are optional.

Only add people you know personally as friends. Turn on the ability to receive contact requests only from friends of your friends.

Disable the geolocation function. It is also advisable to disable GPS on your smartphone if you are not using it.

Now start deleting personal data that you didn't post. If your insurance number appears somewhere, Google can help you remove it. You may need to contact the site administrators to delete some data. If you need to provide a mailing address for work or for registering your domain, use the address of the post office or office (in which, for example, your accountant works), rather than your home address.

If you are using a dating site, do not provide your complete details on the site or in emails. Give your phone number only to those with whom you have already met in person and would not mind meeting again. For maximum total security, do not enter your last name on the web - only your first name.

Be wary of any requests for personal information in a letter or by phone, no matter how reasonable they may sound. If you receive a call from a bank or credit card company, disconnect and call back from another phone (for example, from your mobile, if you were called to a landline), but not the number you just received, but the number of the main office or branch specified in your contract. And never, do you hear, never tell anyone your insurance policy number.

Secure your computer and mobile devices

All the precautions described above will not help if your device is jailbroken. To protect yourself from online harassment and intimidation, keep these basic online safety tips in mind.

Avoid public Wi-Fi networks that are easy to hack. If you want to use Wi-Fi in a cafe or hotel, connect via a virtual private network (VPN) so that no one intercepts your data. A Kaspersky Lab VPN will provide you with a secure connection anywhere in the world.

The VPN will also hide your IP address, which can be used to locate your ISP's account, and through it, your address, credit card number, etc.

Do not leave your smartphone unattended. An attacker can install spyware on him in a couple of minutes - you won't even notice anything.

Make sure to protect all your devices with passwords. Use reliable combinations that are difficult to guess and change them regularly.

Install anti-spyware protection - it can detect malicious activity in time and remove the threat. After deleting, it is worth creating a backup of your data and resetting the device to factory settings to clean it up for sure. Kaspersky Lab Anti-Virus for PC and Android protects your devices.

Remember to log out of your social media accounts periodically.

Be wary of apps that ask for access to your contacts when installed. How do you know why they need it?

About catfishing

Catfishing is a type of scam in which a person creates a fake identity on the Internet and uses it for criminal purposes. The catfisher may persuade the victim to send him intimate photos or videos and then blackmail her, or he may develop a close relationship with the victim and then ask for money, ostensibly to resolve an emergency.

Catfishers can be very persuasive, but there are several ways to expose them.

If their profile contains only selfies or studio shots without friends, family and without any context - think about it.

Run a reverse search on Google Images on a photo from a dating site. A person can have several online profiles with the same photo but under different names.

Invite the person to video call. Guess what he or she will answer you. Catfisher will most likely come up with an excuse and you will never hear from him again.

What to do if you are a victim of cyberstalking

If you are being harassed online, don't wait for the problem to resolve itself - act immediately.

Let the stalker know - always in writing - that you don't want to communicate with him. Tell the police to contact the police if he or she doesn't leave you alone. After that, stop all communication with the person.

If that doesn't help, go to the police. Many police departments have a dedicated cybercrime unit. But the problem has to be real: if you've actually received threats or been harassed, bullied, or intimidated (whether through social media, email, or spyware on your smartphone), then they'll help you.

If you feel that someone is watching you through spyware, do not use your computer or phone to ask for help. Use the phone of a friend or relative.

Have a professional check your devices for spyware or other signs of tampering.

Change all your passwords.

If you are being followed on social networks, block the stalker using your privacy settings, then report the violation to the site administration. You can find instructions on how to do this in the support section of most social media sites.

If you've received nasty or threatening emails, you probably know the stalker provider - it's listed in the email address after the @ sign. Write to abuse @ domain name or postmaster @ domain name. Most ISPs take cyberstalking very seriously. If the attacker uses Gmail, you can report abuse here: https://support.google.com/mail/contact/abuse.

Junk emails can be sent to a separate folder to avoid reading them.

If you think that a cyberstalker can pester you at work, tell your employer about it.

Copy all correspondence on this topic, including your own letters, police reports, and site administration responses. Save this evidence to a USB stick or external drive.

Cyberstalking laws

Cyberstalking is subject to general harassment laws such as the Violence Against Women Act 1994 in the United States or the Harassment Protection Act of 1997 in the United Kingdom. In 1999, California passed the first separate cyberstalking law, and other states soon followed.