13 August 2009 | Commentary, Tips | Erica

There have been an increasing number of stories about issues with online security, and there are plenty of folks out there looking to gain access to your personal information with malicious intent. Below are a few of our tips to help you stay safe when working online.

Be wary of anyone asking you for personal information online. In general, be cautious when giving out personal data online. It can be hard to determine who is receiving that data, and who is responsible for ensuring its security. Once your account is established with us, oDesk will never proactively ask you for your personal information, unless it is in response to your contacting us via our support channels. If you are asked for these items and are uncertain if the person asking is truly an oDesk employee, contact our support team – we can help you identify illegitimate requests.

Educate yourself about phishing. “Phishing” scams are when an outside party tries to get you to release your information in an email or through a site that mimics a legitimate one. Wikipedia says: “In the field of computer security, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT Administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one.”

Defend yourself. Your defense against phishing is to check the browser address bar after you click on a link to make sure it took you to the destination you expected. Do not enter your login credentials on a site that does not reflect the expected URL in the browser address bar!

Updating your passwords is an easy way to reinforce your security measures. Use 8 characters minimally and include mixed case, digits, special characters – the more the merrier! Please make sure that you NEVER use your oDesk account password in any other services.

Forgot your password? Sometimes, the security question can be used by others to access your online accounts – many people use security questions whose response is easily guessable or whose answers can be located in a quick online search. Change your security questions into a second password. Pick any question, but add to the answer an additional password (8 letters, numbers, etc)- this way, your security questions become another line of defense in protecting your online accounts.

And, finally, if you believe your account on any service has been compromised for any reason, contact that company’s support team immediately, as well as any other organization that may be linked to that account.