Stay Safe Online
Protect your accounts, money and privacy: passwords, two-step login, scams, public Wi-Fi, backups and more.
For anyone with a phone and a bank card, no technical background needed. Twelve short lessons cover the habits that stop most real attacks: strong passwords and a password manager, two-step login, spotting scams and phishing, safe payments, privacy settings, updates, backups and what to do if something goes wrong. Examples include SMS and messaging-app scams common in Iran.
By the end you can
- Secure your key accounts with unique passwords and two-step login
- Spot phishing, fake links and common scams before you click
- Pay, browse and share with privacy settings and habits that protect you
- Back up what matters and recover calmly if an account is hacked
Lock your accounts
- How accounts really get taken
Most break-ins aren't clever hacking: they use a reused password, a fake login page or a code you were talked into sharing. Learn the main doors in, and which of your accounts to lock first.
- Strong passwords you don't have to remember
Why length beats clever symbols, why every account needs its own password, and how a password manager makes that easy. You'll leave knowing exactly how to set one up.
- Two-step login: a stolen password isn't enough
Add a second step so that a leaked or phished password alone can't open your account. Learn which methods are strongest, how passkeys work, and how to lock your messengers.
Spot the trick
- Phishing: the message that wants you to hurry
Recognise the recipe behind almost every phishing message, read a link to see who really owns it, and use the one habit that beats even perfect fakes: going around the link.
- Fake pages, fake payment gates and fake apps
Where a scam link actually takes you: a look-alike site, a copy of a payment page or an app that reads your texts. Learn what the padlock does and doesn't mean, how to check a payment page, and which app permissions are red flags.
- SMS, call and messenger scams
Recognise the court-notice, parcel, fake-bank-call, fake-deposit and friend-in-trouble scams, and use one move that defeats all of them: check through a channel you choose yourself.
Everyday safety
- Pay without handing over your card
Know which card details let someone send you money and which let them spend it, check a payment page before you type, and read the one-time code message properly.
- Public Wi-Fi and your home network
Learn what a café or hotel network can really see, the few risks that still matter, and four settings that make your home router much harder to abuse.
- Share less, on purpose
See how scammers build believable stories from what you post, decide which app permissions make sense, and do a ten-minute privacy check-up on your phone and messengers.
Stay ready
- Stop pressing "later"
Understand why updates are the cheapest protection you have, set your devices to update themselves, and tell a real update from a fake one that installs malware.
- Backups: the 3-2-1 rule
Use the 3-2-1 rule to make sure no single theft, breakdown or ransomware attack can take your photos and documents, and learn why sync alone isn't a backup.
- If you get hacked: the first hour
Recognise the signs of a taken account, follow the first-hour steps in the right order, get a messenger account back, and build a small emergency kit today so you're ready.
Keep it, don't just read it
Pathwise brings each idea back just before you'd forget it, with a quick question. Free on Android and on the web, in English and Persian.