Home Blog Page 272

Moving Content from Your Mailbox to Microsoft Server

email and email server

Moving to the entire mail ecosystem of the corporate Office 365 system involves a number of tasks to be handled in a timely manner. Specifically, you might need to migrate your corporate mail to proprietary Exchange Online software. The step shouldn’t be skipped if you do not want to lose a piece of critical information.

This process is laborious and requires the connection of additional technical means. This is especially true when the working mail services of large organizations are subject to migration. Quite often, employees use email as a kind of file sharing, ignoring cloud solutions and other services. This creates a problem with the rather large amount of data that needs to be migrated. In this case, you won’t go far without a specialized Outlook migration tool that will take care of the process.

Some businesses can have serious issues associated with the acquisition of additional storage, which actually comes in handy once. It is much more rational to entrust the solution of the migration task to reliable programs and dedicated assets.

Migrating Mail to the Cloud

As a rule, the transition to separate email services based on Office 365 remains almost invisible. The term for performing all actions is quite individual and can range from days to several weeks, depending on the migration scale.

After completing the creation of backups and copying all the necessary materials, the migration program proceeds to an equally important stage – editing MX records. They store information based on which each incoming letter gets to the required address. The speed of work will depend on the number of mailboxes used by the enterprise. 

The correct approach helps to avoid disruptions in the continuous operation of an established system of exchanging letters or files. If necessary, not only the migration of emails to new addresses can be performed. In the process, the following data are also transferred:

  • Contact lists;
  • Calendar entries;
  • Planner data.

Accordingly, after the successful execution of the operation, the dependence on third-party resources disappears. All future actions will be carried out within the framework of the Microsoft Office system set up in advance within the selected tariff plan.

Implementation of hybrid deployment deserves special attention. It is relevant in cases when a separate part of the letters is planned to be stored on local physical servers, and the other to be redirected to the cloud. This is most often used to optimize data archiving. Such a decision is justified: you can use your own physical storage, the volume of which is limited exclusively by the company’s equipment.

Good to Go?

In the modern IT structure, there is no single way to transfer mail and file attachments stored in it. Determining the best practice will require careful study of many parameters and should be trusted to reliable software solutions. Before deciding on a program to use, check its specs, technical capabilities, and compliance with your email service ecosystem.

How to Color Grade Videos Using Filmora

Color Grade Videos Using Filmora

Unquestionably, color correction, and color grading are the two most important steps for the production of high-quality videos. The way you manipulate the color of your footage can instantly change the mood and overall message that you want to deliver from your video. Over the years the misconnection that color grading is a difficult task and takes years of practice has developed among upcoming filmmakers, video editors, and all sorts of content creators.

Luckily, that’s not true. However, finding out a video color grading software that is easy to use and offers professional results is a difficult task. Well, if you are facing this difficulty, then two check the prominent Filmora9 Video Editor.

In this article, we have shared some details about the color grading capabilities of Filmora.

Color Grade Videos Using Filmora

There’s no denying the fact that Filmora is one of the easiest and most feature-packed video editing software out there. Many famous vloggers and YouTubers use Filmora to produce high-quality videos. In comparison to complex color grading programs like DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro, Filmora is quite simple to use. Moreover, it doesn’t consume much system resources and performs really well, even on low-powered laptops and aging desktops.

So here’s how you can color grade videos using the Filmora video editor.

Color Grade Videos Using Filmora

STEP 1: Similar to every other video editing project, to color grade a video, you have to first import your footage into Filmora. To do so, you can either drag and drop your videos or simply use the import button option.

Color Grade Videos Using Filmora

STEP 2: Once the footage is on your timeline, locate the color tuning tool in the timeline menu. Based on your preference, you can now either select a preset or manually manipulate the colors of your video. Finally, click “OK” to save the changes to your video.

Once your edits are completed, you can directly upload your edited footage on video-sharing platforms like YouTube and Vimeo. Filmora automatically optimizes your exported video files for these platforms, and while doing so it pays great focus on offering the highest quality video output.

The Five Best Color Grading Features Of Filmora

In no particular order, these are the five best color grading features of Filmora.

Color Grade Videos Using Filmora

1. White Balance

Using two simple sliders in Filmora, you can effortlessly control the White Balance of your footage. These sliders will help you to control the temperature and tint. Consequently, use the white balance slider of Filmora to either make your footage warmer or colder.

2. 3D LUT

If you have been producing videos for quite some time now then you would have definitely come across the term Look Up Table or often abbreviated as LUT. 3D LUTs make the process of color grading very time efficient. Furthermore, they can help you achieve a certain look without having to adjust individual settings. Luckily, Filmora supports 3D LUTs and there are many great pre-installed LUTs in Filmora.

3. Color

The dedicated color section in Filmora can help you control aspects like videos’ exposure, brightness, contrast, vibrance, and saturation. A perfect combination of these effects will yield professional results.

4. HSL

Using Filmora you can manage the Hue, Saturation, and Luminance of individual colors. Changing the hue will offer a unique look to your videos. While saturation can help define how pronounced your color is. Lastly, luminance comes in handy for brightening or darkening a particular color.

5. Vignette

Vignette is another great feature of Filmora. It can be used to darken the sides of a video and draw the viewer’s attention to the lead character. You can control the amount of vignetting using a basic slider.

Lastly, Filmora can be used on both Windows 10 and macOS Big Sur desktops and laptops.

6 Online Tools to Streamline Online Based Businesses

Protect Your Business

Around 16 million Americans are self-employed. A growing number of them are pursuing careers running online businesses. The number of people selling products on Etsy, running their own blogs or managing online lead generation services for local businesses has exploded in recent years.

Unfortunately, many of these online entrepreneurs are not successful. Part of the issue is due to the fact that they believe that they can run a successful online business without any financial investment. The unfortunate reality is that it is necessary to invest in the right tools if you really want to succeed.

There are a lot of great tools that can increase your odds of success as an online business owner. Some of the most important ones are listed below.

JFrog

Docker is a very useful platform for anybody working in digital marketing. You can use Docker containers to streamline content delivery and manage digital assets more effectively. JFrog is a great tool that you should look into if you are already leveraging the benefits of Docker.

Aweber

Aweber is a great email marketing automation platform. It enables marketers to build email subscriber lists, schedule emails, measure engagement, and segment lists.

This is a very important tool if you plan to run email marketing campaigns. Aweber makes email marketing far more efficient. It also Is compliant with the GDPR and minimizes your risk of getting flagged for spam. If you have fewer than 500 subscribers, then you’ll need to pay $19 a month. This is a great deal if you want to leverage your email marketing assets to their fullest advantage.

Hootsuite

Social media marketing is a key component for many online business models. Running a social media strategy was pretty straightforward in the early days of the Internet. Unfortunately, it has become much more difficult in 2020. You are going to need all the social media tools that you can.

HootSuite is arguably the best social media platform available. It is used by 18 million people and is trusted by 80% of all Fortune 1000 companies. You can use a free HootSuite account to manage up to three social media profiles at any given time. This will significantly reduce the manhours you have to put into overseeing and managing your social media strategy.

Trello

Your online business is going to become more complicated when you start growing. You will eventually need to start hiring employees to help you manage your day-to-day operations.

This will get rather complicated quickly. You need to have a system in place to manage employee tasks and keep everybody on track. A good project management application can do wonders in this situation.

Trello is a great project management tool if you don’t want to spend a lot of money. You can have a free team on up to 10 boards with unlimited cards and lists at any given time. The GUI interface is also very intuitive.

Skype

In addition to meeting project management tools, you are going to need other online collaboration applications. Skype is one of the most popular.

Skype provides VOIP telecommunications services. You can easily keep in touch with your employees, customers and contractors. This is one of the most efficient ways to maintain communication with anybody all over the world.

Tailwind

Do you use Pinterest to market your content? You probably should if you haven’t started already. Pinterest is one of the most popular social networking sites and the best traffic sources on the Internet.

You will get a lot more from your Pinterest marketing campaigns if you invest in the right tools. Tailwind is one of the best Pinterest automation tools available. You can get a premium account for just $13 a month. If you pay a monthly plan, then you can schedule up to 10 pens a day. If you pay for the annual plan, then you will get a discount and be able to post an unlimited number of pins.

Tailwind also has a number of tribes that you can join, which gives you the opportunity to network with Pinterest users in your niche or related niches. This makes it easier to leverage your Pinterest marketing capabilities.

How Different Instagram Media Types Can Help Your Influencer Campaigns

4K videos for sharing to Instagram TV

The days of celebrity endorsements are falling into the past. These days, companies are turning to a different group of personalities to help promote their brands: Instagram influencers. In fact, 87% of marketing professionals say Instagram is important for their campaigns in 2020.

Instagram is leading the pack, and it’s not a mystery why. The platform is easy to use, allows for interaction between users, and offers a variety of media types to play with. Each of these different Instagram media types has different applications in influencer marketing. Keep reading to find out how you can use Stories, Reels, and more in your influencer campaigns. Also read, how to get more Instagram free followers and help you become an influencer quickly.

What are Instagram’s media formats?

Instagram provides different ways to publish your content, each with different features to help you express yourself. The key is deciding which is best suited to share your message. A lot has changed since Instagram debuted 10 years ago, so let’s break down each type of media, what it offers, and how it can be useful in influencer campaigns.

Posts

Posts are Instagram’s original media format. These are the photos and videos that you see on the main tab of someone’s profile. You can edit in-app, add filters, and write captions for each post. You can choose to upload one photo or video, or you can choose up to 10 to create a carousel of swipeable content. Keep in mind that videos uploaded as posts are limited to 60 seconds.

In influencer marketing, posts are generally the most expensive type of media on Instagram. This is because they usually generate the most impressions, and also because they require more effort on the part of the influencer. Posts stay on a profile’s feed, and they’re the first thing someone sees when they arrive on a profile, so they take more work than stories. Posts are especially useful for highly visual products like clothes or makeup, or for hosting giveaways.

Instagram Media Types
A post uploaded by @leomessi. The icon at the top right shows this is a carousel of multiple photos.

Stories

Stories work almost like a “status” on Instagram. They don’t show up on a profile’s feed, and they disappear after 24 hours unless they’re archived to highlights. Stories allow for photos, videos, gifs, mentions, hashtags, filters and more.

Stories eventually disappear and therefore require less effort on the influencer’s part. Because of this, they’re easier and cheaper to produce, and cost a bit less for brands to contract. Stories are particularly useful for promoting products that don’t have a very high value or that aren’t well-suited to content creation. For example, a post that highlights a certain brand of tissues may come across as really forced, but stories might offer a more natural way to send the message.

Stories can also be a great tool for driving traffic to your website because of their Swipe Up feature. But, in order to access this, the account must be a professional account and have at least 10,000 followers. We’ll explain more about this later.

IGTV

Instagram TV allows for longer videos than what can be uploaded as a post. IGTV is actually a standalone app that integrates with Instagram; only users who have the IGTV app will have a separate tab on their IGTV content profile. Video limits are 15 minutes when uploading from mobile, and 60 minutes when uploading from the desktop.

This format is especially useful for video content highlighting experiences or complex products. For example, a music festival can be better experienced through the dynamic motion and sound offered by video. Or, an online service might be difficult to explain in photos, but is made simple and concise through a video demonstration.

Instagram Media Types
@android’s IGTV content. Notice how IGTV appears as a separate tab on the profile. The videos demonstrate different Android features much better than photos ever could.

IG Live

Live works like stories or IGTV, but it’s, well, live! Live lets you share what’s happening around you at the moment. Further, with IG Live, the audience can actively participate by leaving comments or asking questions.

As the IG Live format relies on spontaneity, it lends itself to authenticity. And this is key for influencer marketing campaigns. As an influencer is filming what’s happening to them in real time, their reactions are more likely to be genuine. Live is best used to help the audience experience exciting events first-hand, or for product Q&A sessions, in which an influencer can make their audience feel like they are active participants in the product review.

Reels

Reels is Instagram’s latest media format. They were rolled out in August 2020 and share a lot of similarities with another social network: TikTok. With Reels, you can use a variety of creative tools to upload 15-second videos. You can add music, your own audio, filters, and effects, and change the speed of your video.

Due to its time limit, Reels isn’t ideal for anything that needs a thorough explanation. But they can be great for branding, especially for highly visual products. You could try Reels for montages like a video lookbook or makeover before-and-after. And they could be useful for quick demos or “trailers” to introduce a restaurant or tourist destination. Instagram Reels could also be useful for brands who want to try TikTok-style advertising but whose countries have banned the app. For example, TikTok was banned in India back in June, but Indian brands looking to try a similar style of marketing can now find influencers on Instagram to do so with Reels.

What is a pro account and how can you get one?

Earlier we mentioned the Swipe Up feature available in stories. You’ve probably seen it at some point while surfing Instagram, and maybe you’ve noticed that you can’t seem to find it on your account when uploading your own stories. That’s because Swipe Up is only available for professional accounts that have over 10,000 followers. There are two types: business and creator.

Business accounts

Business accounts are for brandscompaniesretailerslocal businesses, and service providers. When you convert to a business account, you’ll get access to Instagram Insights, the app’s analytics tool that reveals information about your profile and audience. In addition, as a business account, you’ll be able to :

  • Add contact information so customers can reach out to you
  • Create ads from Instagram content
  • Label products that appear in your content
  • Add a category to your profile to show your industry
Instagram Media Types
A post from cosmetics brand @anastasiabeverlyhills, showing their powder bronzer cappuccino as a tagged product.

Creator accounts

Creator accounts are for influencerscelebritiesartists, and content producers. They’re pretty similar to business accounts, and also give you access to Instagram Insights to learn more about your audience, where they come from when they’re usually online, and other metrics to help you grow your profile. As a creator, you can also:

  • Add contact info
  • Categorize your profile (i.e. blogger)
  • Organize your direct messages with folders and rankings
  • Tag products and brands in your posts

How to go pro

If you want to convert your account into a professional account, it’s simple! From your profile, go to Settings > Account > Switch to Professional Account. It’s worth noting that changing to a pro account will make any private account public, and any pending follow requests will be automatically approved.

Choose whether you want a business or creator account. You’ll have to enter your contact information and category. You can also choose to link your Instagram profile to a Facebook page. Once you’re set up, you can choose to hide your contact and category info should you wish.

Conclusion

Perhaps Instagram is the most popular social network for influencer campaigns because it has something for everyone. Brands can maintain a presence and communicate directly with potential customers. Influencers have a variety of ways to express themselves through different media types and features. And together, the two can form collaborations to make just about any marketing goal become a reality.

Review: FocoDesign — Ultimate tool to create amazing Instagram stories

FocoDesign cover

Social media has become an important part in our life to meet new people, express ourselves, share some memories, anytime, anywhere. Instagram is the most popular these days; now, everyone is searching for some quality quotes, photos, and video editors for their Instagram stories.

Instagram Stories are one of the common ways to express our thoughts to our friends and followers. One can create countless Instagram stories to explain something or just give an overview of what you are exactly up to. Instagram itself offers a number of features to make your stories look creative and unique, but sometimes that might not be enough for some. 

That’s where FocoDesign comes. It has massive templates and tools for you to create amazing Instagram stories, highlight covers, Instagram posts, even logos for Instagram. Whatever kind of stories you want to make, you will find the most appropriate and relevant templates in FocoDesign. The templates and these graphics make your stories look very rich and professionally created, that’s why it is a must-have app for those who want to increase their popularity in Instagram or any other social platform.

The FocoDesign offers over 5000 templates. This app allows users to add videos & photos together in a video, create a gif or short animation video using a single image. One of the best features is it also incorporates a Background remover, a very useful and unique feature. For videos, you can find a mixer in the video editor of FocoDesign, you can add songs, tags, stickers, etc.

Installing FocoDesign

FocoDesign

The UI is very neat and easy to understand; it even has a section for tips and tricks where you will get to know how to use all the unique features FocoDesign offers.

FocoDesign

To edit a photo, tap on the Photo Editor option in the main screen and select the image; you can select up to 40 images to edit. After selecting images, tap on the Create button in the top right corner. You can edit the images as a batch too, which means doing changes in a single image can automatically perform those same changes to all those selected images. If you’re an online seller, then you can always create Instagram stories and highlight covers for selling goods in batches.

In the editor, you can add image, text, stickers, markups, label, watermarks, and crop it, and you put it in a frame too.

Let’s try removing background from an image

FocoDesign

Select the image, then tap on the option remove, now draw a rough border on the part that you want to keep after that select remove, then draw a rough line on the part that you want to remove, if any needed part is removed, you can undo it and use the Eraser. This background removing a feature is pretty smart working, so there is no necessity for those borderlines to be exact, just do a rough line draw. 

Then tap on Next in the top right corner, and the background is removed!

FocoDesign

You can select any other background from the given ones to make your image more colorful.

Now let’s try editing a video

Select the Video editor option from the main screen. Then select the video that you want to edit, only short videos.

FocoDesign

Then select the export format; it can be done as a video or a gif. You can also select the quality at which you want the video 480p to 1080p is available.

After selecting the export format, lets move to editing. You can add text, stickers, music, and watermarks. You can also record your voice and add it to the video. Trimming and dividing video is also available. You can also do a mixer, which means that you can add another video on the top of the video and position it anywhere in any size you want, kinda Picture-in-Picture effect for video display.

Now let’s try the collage option

Select Collage. Select the images you want; maximum number is 9.

FocoDesign

The selected images will be shown in a default template. Then you select any template from the list or tap on the collage option, which is the best. There you will be given a lot of options in selecting background and frames if the default backgrounds are not good enough. You can select any image as background from internal phone storage.

FocoDesign

Scrolling down the main screen, you will see many templates and animations that you can use for your Instagram posts; everything is in balance half is free, and half requires premium. There are a lot of categories to select from like-

FocoDesign

Now let’s try creating a short video using image

Scroll down, and you will see a video category, select the one you like, tap on export in the top right corner and then select the image and adjust it according to you in the frame.

FocoDesign

What catches the audience’s eyes is an “attractive story”, which can also help marketers. This best story editor will make the story stand out in the easiest way. Different templates are categorized nicely for the users to easily pick them up. With this story editor for Instagram, each template is ready to use, just select any layout and edit with a range of easy-to-use tools. Whatever your style, you can get the perfect look and create a stylish story effortlessly.

If you want to increase your follower count, try FocoDesign! This all-in-one Instagram Story Editor is designed to make the best story art. 

4 Simple Ways to Make Your Small Business Documents More Secure

Necessity of Cybersecurity

It doesn’t matter how big or small your business may be; every industry relies on its documents for success. Everything you do is secured in your documents, and if it gets into the wrong hands, your years of struggle will go down the drain. Be it internal documents, financial records, or any identifiable information; it is saved on your documents, which is why it is imperative that you take the necessary steps to make your files more secure. 

In this article, I am going to highlight four simple steps you can take to protect your business’s data so that it doesn’t get into the wrong hands.

Make Digital Copies 

The very first thing that you should be doing is to make digital copies of your local files. You need to keep your files in a better place than just the cabinets of your office room. In case of a natural disaster, your paper documents or hard copies are at risk. So, you need to have a digital backup of your data. If anything goes south, you can easily download your backups and continue where you left off without suffering any loss. Moreover, with the help of click sodapdf, you can make your documents more secure with its eSign feature.

Password Protect Your Files 

You would be surprised to know the number of people who know their important files on their laptops or mobile devices, without protecting them. If someone gets hold of their laptop, or a hacker gains access to it, they can easily modify anything they want to. To make sure that you add an extra level of security to your files, you should protect them by using a password. If your files are in the PDF format, you can easily protect them from edits using Adobe Acrobat. 

Stay Up to Date with Your Cybersecurity 

With the advancements being made in tech, you would not believe how many different methods hackers can use to get into your security system. As most of the business work on an online model with every file uploaded on the internet, you need to make sure that your network is secure and no one from the outside can get in. You can look for paid programs to make your devices more secure and update your cybersecurity protocols so that you don’t have to worry about any outside infiltration.

Plan Your Response to Data Breach

It doesn’t matter how much you secure your files; it is always best to be prepared for the worst-case scenario. How you respond to a data breach says a lot about how costly that breach is going to be. In order to make sure that you don’t lose everything in case of a breach, you need to plan ahead. As soon as you figure out that there is a breach, you should immediately shut down your system and start a search party to locate the compromised system. It would be best if you only started working after you have conducted an internal review to find out what caused the leak.

How Does Artificial Intelligence Help Businesses?

Artificial Intelligence in Neuro Sciences

For the last few years, artificial intelligence has become an essential part of every business. 

You may think that AI is a new technology, but the truth is, we have been using artificial intelligence for many years. For instance, when you send a question to Google, it uses AI to come up with more accurate answers.

Today, artificial intelligence is valuable to both small businesses and big companies. Most companies have used AI technology through applications like attendance systems and automated time.

Artificial intelligence accelerates business operations while still increasing accuracy and infinity.

Many organizations across all industries in the world have embraced the use of AI technology to streamline their operations. 

So, how do AI technology benefits businesses?

In this article, you will discover eight ways in which artificial intelligence can be helpful to both small and big businesses. 

Personalize Customer Support Service

Today, most customer interactions in many businesses are handled without human interactions. 

Artificial intelligence software like chatbots are used to create engagement with customers and respond to their queries. Artificial intelligence systems can also be used to gather information about individual customers and collect feedback. It can observe customer’s behavior and predict what services or products are relevant to them.

Personalized customer service available 24 hours in seven days makes your customers feel appreciated for doing business with you. 

If you want to use artificial intelligence technology in your business, you can get help at www.oraclecms.com.

Reducing Errors 

Though artificial intelligence is not error-free, it is more accurate than humans. 

In many cases, you will find that an artificial intelligence software’s accuracy is 99% even for most complicated systems. 

A recent study conducted by Venturebeat reveals that artificial intelligence is 99% accurate in detecting breast cancer. Artificial intelligence can also manage customer information and make valuable decisions with the available data. 

Generate New Business Insights

In any business, data is an invaluable resource. However, if you cannot be able to analyze your business data and make use of it, it may never benefit your business. 

Artificial intelligence can effectively manage, analyze, and interpret data to generate meaningful business insights. Such insights can be used to improve customer service or products. 

In simpler words, artificial intelligence can convert data and information into useful knowledge. It can also study customers’ behavior and patterns to predict the future.

Saving Time and Money

Unlike human beings, machines can work efficiently without needing to rest, sleep, or take breaks due to boredom. Your business can rely on AI for 24/7 coverage in providing customer service and doing other simple tasks. 

Artificial intelligence can also help in handling tasks like data analysis and repetitive jobs, which can be boring and tiresome to your staff. Some tasks, such as responding to customers’ queries, may seem simple, but they do take a lot of time. They might require you to hire more staff or extend your staff’s working hours.

But with artificial intelligence, such tasks can be handled simultaneously, thus save more time and money. 

Real-Time Assistance in Various Fields

Does your business struggle in keeping up with logistics and customer interactions?

Well, artificial intelligence could be of great help in your business. AI systems and chatbots can be used to pass important updates to customers and inform them about certain things. 

For example, in aviation, artificial intelligence systems are used to inform and update customers about their fight schedules through personal notifications. 

Handling Marketing

Artificial intelligence systems are capable of analyzing data to generate buyer’s personas. Then they market the relevant services to the right buyers.

With artificial intelligence in your business, you can easily determine your customers’ needs and interests and, in turn, match them to your products. In this case, marketing will effectively be done targeting potential customers only. 

Increase Productivity

Artificial intelligence systems will handle all the repetitive and time-consuming tasks, allowing your staff to focus on other important tasks. 

Your workers are likely to be more productive when they are not overworked with routine tasks.

This will also be more helpful, especially when you have limited staff to work with and don’t want to extend their working hours. Therefore, your limited staff will be more efficient when repetitive tasks are lifted off their shoulders. 

Security and Risk Management

Artificial intelligence systems can automatically identify the security risks associated with the various business process. This will help in protecting the business information and ensuring that customers’ data is safe. 

AI systems can also analyze patterns of online behavior to detect credit card frauds. Thus, it will save your business from losses caused by security issues. 

Final Thoughts

Artificial intelligence is here to stay and can help your business run more effectively and profitably. This technology will not replace your employees, but compliment them and lead to better productivity.  

Is Your Info on the Dark Web? Here’s What You Need to Know

Documentaries About Hacking And Hackers

The dark web is a part of the internet that can’t be navigated with normal search engines. It isn’t indexed for search, and it requires a special browser to view. Not everything on the dark web is nefarious, but the greater degree of anonymity users enjoy, there means that lots of criminal activity happen on dark websites — including the buying and selling of stolen personal information.

But how do you even find out if your info is on the dark web, and what do you do if you discover that it is? You can check to see if your information has already found its way onto the dark web, but it’s safest to process as if your data has already been compromised — with data breaches happening left and right and affecting companies of all sizes, it’s really only a matter of time until it’s true, anyway. Take steps to protect your data, so you can avoid becoming the victim of cybercrime.

Assume that Your Information Is Already Compromised

There are plenty of services available to help you determine whether your personal information has been compromised in a data breach. Have I Been Pwned is a longstanding and popular option to check for your data on the dark web, but it’s not the only one. These tools can help you determine if your email address has been leaked to the dark web, as well as other, more sensitive information.

Whether or not you get confirmation that your data is on the dark web, you should proceed as if it already is. Perform regular malware scans on your computer and use a comprehensive antivirus solution with a firewall. Avoid accessing sensitive information, like financial accounts, on public wifi. Secure your home network. Check your financial accounts daily, and your credit reports regularly. That way, when scammers do get their hands on your personal info — and they eventually will — they won’t be able to do much with it, because you’ll be on your toes.

Use an ID Monitoring Service

An ID monitoring service can do a lot to protect you from dark web denizens. These services monitor the dark web for the appearance of your sensitive info, including email addresses, credit, and debit card numbers, other financial account numbers, Social Security numbers, and even your address. They’ll alert you if any of your sensitive financial info appears on the dark web, if your email is breached, or if you’re using passwords that have been compromised on the dark web. Then you can take appropriate steps, like changing passwords for compromised accounts, monitoring your financial accounts more carefully, or freezing your credit to prevent identity theft.

There are plenty of such services available, but the free ones don’t offer as many features, so they aren’t as useful. Buy a paid ID monitoring service, like this one available from Trend Micro: https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/forHome/products/id-security.html

Get a Password Manager

Using a unique, strong password for each and every one of your online accounts is one of the single most effective things you can do to protect yourself from cybercrime and identity theft. Yes, we know that’s difficult because you have so many accounts. Some people have dozens of sets of login credentials for email, social media, financial accounts, and so on.

It might be easier to use the same password for everything, but that also makes it easier for cybercriminals to access all your personal accounts. And if your one password gets compromised, you’ll have to go and change them all anyway — but you’ll most likely miss at least one, which could leave you still vulnerable. Use a password manager like LastPass or KeePass not only to generate secure passwords for all your accounts but keep track of them, too.

The dark web isn’t entirely populated by criminals — a lot of dark web users are regular people who just want a truly anonymous online experience. But that doesn’t change the fact that stolen personal information is bought and sold on dark web forums every day. Take steps to protect yourself, so you don’t become a victim.