Some tips on keeping your online financial and personal information safe.
Almost every part of our financial life and big part of our personal life is now easy to access online. Hopefully all of it is protected by passwords. However, if we haven't been clever about how we use our passwords, somebody could get access to all of it.
A big part of the securing your stuff is choosing a good password. I like passwords that are long and have letters, numbers and punctuation. To make it easy to remember, try a phrase like "My2boysliketojump!" with a number in the middle and an exclamation point at the end. It's easy to remember, hard to attack. Don't just use your child's name or a phone number for your password.
Ideally you should choose a different password for every web site you use. One way to make this easier is to use software like keepass or 1password to store your password collection.
You should at least use a unique password for your e-mail account and each banking site and change it regularly. This is critical, because many web sites use your e-mail address as the login ID. If such a site is hacked and your password revealed, unless your e-mail password is different, the attacker can log into your e-mail. From there, he can figure out other sites you use, and reset the password to take them over.
One last tip, any web site you log into should use a secure connection so that your information cannot be intercepted while it travels between your computer and the site. Most browsers indicate a secure site with a "lock" icon. Learn what that lock icon looks like and don't log into sites without it.
Source:Adventist News Network
