Said another way, when you post personal information on-line where it’s easy to find, and then use this same information for passwords on secure sites, you’re inviting trouble.
WHO AND WHY
While you and I use Facebook and other social media sites to build friendships and business relationships, people with not such good intentions are using these same sites to mine for information that they can use to access your more sensitive information like bank and credit card accounts.
WHAT TO DO
You need to change your secure passwords. NOW!
Use a combination of letters and numbers, and don’t make it easy. Do not use your birthday; it’s public information. Do not use your wedding anniversary or children’s birth dates. This is also public information. Your address, license plate number, high school name, college, city of birth… all these are readily available from both what you’ve posted and public records. If you need to make up a word and add a number to it, do so. But never post it anywhere!
Get it? Do it. Now.
Oh, and like Columbo said, “aaaah, just one more thing…”
Never, NEVER access secure accounts from a public WiFi location. The bad guys are scanning for secure information that’s going across the airwaves and can capture your information this way.
If you need to login to a site, save it until you’re home or at the office where your computer is on a secure network.
Your network is secure, isn’t it?
Maybe that’s a subject for another blog.
MORE INFORMATION
Here are a few interesting sites for more information about on-line identity theft and how to protect yourself:
So important! It's going to take a while but I'm changing ALL my passwords! Thanks for the reminder Beryn!
ReplyDeleteGreat blog, Beryn. Looking forward to reading ab out new products and technology that can help my business!
ReplyDelete