The views below have been shared by Mr. Scott Rowswell of British Columbia, Canada. You can visit Mr. Scott's LinkeIn Profile at this LINK
I think for the vast majority of users, the issues boil down to common sense:
- use only strong passwords and do not share them across different sites
- Be aware that every site you visit has the potential to track you and most do. Many of the most poplar surfing sites are the worst.
- Check regularly that you haven’t had trolls, malware, etc installed on your machine.
- Never enter personal data on any site that is not secure.
- never enter personal data onto “cloud” servers
- Never open emails received from locations you don’t recognize.
- be sure your ISP utilises tools that filter / manage known harmful sites
- Block or do not open links that are included in social media posts unless you are positive they are safe
- etc
Over 90% of the harmful sites I have been contacted by have found me through my interactions with African friends. This has been from snatching my email address from emails or, more often, from theft of their contact lists.
Many of the links that these contacts provide are laced with malware, trolls etc. As an FYI this includes many of the links that are posted on Facebook, etc from to the “religious” sites. In quotes because I think many are not truly interested in the content they provide, they are interested in having site visitors who think a religious site must be safe and so are not careful with their interactions.
I now block virtually all links that I receive & never open links I don’t investigate 1st.
Bottom line. You are living in the region (Africa) of the worked that is most vulnerable as it has the weakest security at the host and above level. This, combined with a community that is very fond of widespread surfing, makes for an ideal environment for hackers, etc.
While much of the negative work comes from Africa (Nigeria and Eastern Africa (Kenya and Uganda, esp) with large IT capable hacking communities, a large source is from outside of Africa (Eastern Europe and Asia, esp China) that is aimed specifically at African users.
Virtually 100% of machines & Networks I have connected to / with in African countries have been infected.
The bottom line is that Africa has an especially large number of easily detectable harmful sites. This suggests that the number of more sophisticated harmful sites, that are harder to detect, is also very large. If one wants to stay secure