Increasing number of people are becoming victims of cybercrimes. It ranges from hurtful comments to death threats. Even celebrities like Emma Watson, Taylor Swift, Adele, and even 16-year-old Millie Bobby Brown are cyberbullied from time to time. And it isn’t a gender specific issue as Ed Sheeran, Zayn Malik, and Justin Bieber face it too.

People are becoming such tech savvies that they may hack your accounts and cause you harm. If you’ve ever been cyberbullied, you should know that it is not your fault, you will get through it, and it is not weak to seek help from those you trust. Moreover, here are some tips to protect yourself from further stress and trauma.

•  Educate those who are trying to brush off cyberbullying as a joke. Let them know why they shouldn’t act in such manner.

•  Do not react to bullies as they rely on your reactions. Do not give them the satisfaction to have an impact on you.

•  Let others know about the incident. There is no shame in being cyberbullied, and so find support in friends and family even if you think that you are at fault.

•  Block or report their accounts. You won’t have to deal with their negativity anymore, and you could just unblock them when you’re ready.

•  Collect evidence and expose them. You could file a police complaint as it is a crime that shouldn’t go unpunished.

•  Log off and spend your time elsewhere. Do not let the virtual world affect you and your well-being.

•  Keep your phone close and password-protected. Do not save information that may harm you or anyone else if they ever get leaked.

•  Reset your privacy settings now and then. Do not use the same password for everything because if one social media account gets hacked, so will every other one.

•  Share Awareness so that people know how their actions may affect others and how they themselves would get in trouble if they plan on doing something similar.

The biggest problem these days is victim-blaming. People always assume that the victims weren’t careful enough for which they may have deserved what happened to them. The way it isn’t your fault if your house gets robbed, it isn’t your fault if you are the victim of cybercrimes.

If we can make everyone focus on punishing the criminals rather than finding ways in which the victims went wrong, the mental health of those affected by such abuse would not be as bad as it is today.