If someone breaks into your house or car, you would call the cops.
What about if an individual hacks your computer, social media, or internet bank account though?
The solutions not that easy anymore…..because the danger no longer takes place in the physical world. The threat could be sitting in a cafe in London or a remote location in Romania (we’ll get to this place more in my next tech article).
We live in a world where we use mobile technology & social media on an almost hourly basis, from scrolling Facebook to managing our online bank accounts.
Yes, we all know a few friends who have had their Facebook accounts hacked or had identity fraud happen to them.
But we are not personally taking the proper action to make sure the same doesn’t happen for ourselves.
Don’t believe me?
Lets do a quick little 3 question test just for fun:
1. Do you currently use the same login password for more than one login? (Facebook, E-mail, Bank Acct, etc). Chances are you do. Making yourself liable to hacks in multiple accounts with the same account is easily avoidable.
2. How complex are your passwords? “Monkey24” is much easier to break than “horseriderducksauceflavor” is.
3. Do you use your birthday? If so, I’d log in an change it immediately (anyone can find this public information).
My guess is that at least two of the above questions relate to you, if not all three.
Your next question may be….how am I going to remember all of these passwords?
You could pretend it’s 1995 again, grab a pen/paper and start making a list….
or
You can take the easy route and use my following suggestion.
I use Last Pass. It is a completely free premium password management service. You only have to remember one Master Password. LastPass has an easy form filler that automates password entering and remembers them.
I highly recommend using it!!
Last Pass keeps you safer online while taking any stress out of password management.
Now that we’ve found a solution to your password dilemma, let’s get back to another internet security issue that play a role in your life everyday.
Ever open up and e-mail from someone that included links/attachments?
Opening up an e-mail alone won’t pose a threat to you or your computer, but clicking on unknown links and opening up attachments sure can.
My simple advice: if theres a link to something such as ThisSitesAwesome.com don’t immediately click on it. If you click on this, I could make it lead to anything at all (like my website). Instead, open up your web browser and type in the domain name in a direct search. (use your best judgement- attachments from friends, co-workers, aquantances are usually completely fine).
Hope some of the above advice was helpful/insightful for you 🙂
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Check back on the Ryan Malinowski blog soon to read Part 2: I’ll get more technical discussing personal security advice, Romania, types of encryption, a bunch of other nerdy stuff, and more importantly how you can use this information in your own life.
