Being Safe in Cyberspace
Mat Honan’s article about his entire digital life being wiped out by hackers is certainly a scary example of how our personal information is accessible by anyone with an internet connection and a small bit of computer knowledge. This is certainly disconcerting, especially thinking how much important information we have on separate websites all across the internet. Personally, I have multiple social networking accounts, remote access to my functions for my job, music sites, video sharing, banking, blogging, shopping, and other functions, all for my personal use. Keeping track of everything like that can be tough. But I think this article made me want to make sure I am still following strong security practices.
Give yourself 1 point for every “no” answer to the following 5 questions.
- Do you use the same password for any of these accounts: Email, Google/Gmail, Facebook, iTunes/Apple, Amazon, online banking? 1
- Is your email password less than 10 characters long? 0
- Have you ever told anyone else one of your passwords? 1
- Do you allow your web browser, your email client, or any websites to save passwords? 1
- Do you have any passwords written down somewhere? 1
Give yourself 1 point for every “yes” answer to the following 5 questions.
- Do you back up your data? 1
- Do you have data backups both “in the cloud” (online) and locally (on another hard drive or computer)? 1
- Is your primary computer password-protected? 1
- Is your anti-virus software up to date? 1
- Do you regularly update your operating system? 1
I scored a 9/10 on the security questions. Which is good, but Mat Honan’s article brought up something I didn’t think about. His accounts were hacked because he had all of his online applications linked to one another, and I think I am going to go ahead and change all of that.
Leave a Reply