Maintaining a successful freelancing career can sometimes be challenging. One of the biggest difficulty is to find clients who are in need of your services and make them willingly pay the price. In this competitive market, it is difficult to incorporate trust in potential customers.
Another big problem that freelancers often face is remaining safe on the Internet. Cyber-crime is at its peak and anyone can be the next victim of it. Money usually gets transferred between multiple accounts and daily access to Internet hereby can be an issue. Freelancers must take measures to protect themselves against hackers and prospective identity threats. Here are few tips in which this can be done:
Protect data with VPN
Freelancers cannot expect to earn a steady income unlike traditional jobs. You do not have a single employer who is going to transfer money after a particular period of time. They are likely to earn money from a variety of sources. Freelancer’s money is always flowing from one account to another. Protecting this money is essentially important.
However, protecting your finances is not as simple as we think. Hackers can anytime use your financial information to hack into computers and accounts and steal your identity. This is where Virtual Private Network comes into play.
VPN is the key measure to prevent occurrence of any unwanted incident. It creates a tunnel between your computer and the third party. The data becomes encrypted hiding the IP address. This enhances your online security. Your server and connection point remain unknown to other parties. So it is important for freelancers to find the best free VPN or go for the paid ones in order to ensure maximum security.
Use secure freelance contracting services
You need to ensure that you are working with individuals that are trustworthy and on secure websites. There are a number of contracting services on the web serving different types of freelancers. Make sure the service is of reputable nature and has not been hacked.
Experienced freelancers may be familiar with some reputable services on the Internet like Upwork and Guru. Stick with these kind of services in order to be safer and eliminate potential dangers.
Also check for the HTTPS. You need to make sure that the site is secure. Look at the URL and make sure it begins with HTTPS rather than HTTP. S here stands for secure. This means there are layers of encryption so that users can be protected. It is always preferable to use secured websites rather than going for unsecured alternatives.
Maintain a secure virtual workplace
You can add more layers of protection to your virtual workplace in order to get the most out of your freelancing career. A firewall can be used to inform you when intruders are trying to have illegal access to your computer. It will even alert you when your computer is doing things without your control over it. Anti-virus software can scan your computer on regular basis to watch for potential malware.