Securing Your Online Accounts
Protect yourself from identity theft.
Passwords have become a regular part of our everyday lives. They are the first line of defense to protect online accounts. Attackers will use a variety of methods to get your password. Sometimes it’s as easy as buying a list of known accounts on the black market or as rudimentary as brute-force attacks. Other times, we unknowingly give the attackers our passwords through social engineering. Eiher way, the best way to protect online accounts is by being proactive.
Create Strong passwords.
Use a combination of at least 13 upper-case letters, lower-case letters, numbers, and special characters. Never use dictionary words, obvious passwords (such as 123456) or personal information (such as social security numbers). Try to make your passwords as unique or random as possible.
Store passwords securely.
If you write your passwords down, lock them up. If you keep them on your computer or electronic device, use a secure password manager instead of a spreadsheet or a web browser’s auto-fill function. Do not share your passwords with anyone unless you know them, trust them, and they need to know it.
Do not reuse passwords.
Once you have used a password, never use it again for any account. Also, have unique passwords for each of your accounts. If one account is compromised, all accounts using the same password are compromised. Change any passwords that are compromised immediately.
Do Not answer security questions truthfully
Answers to these questions can sometimes be found with a simple internet search. Securely store the answers to these questions along with your passwords in case you need to recover the account.
Use multi-factor authentification whenever possible.
This is especially important for higher risk accounts such as banks or other financial institutions.
Do Not login over public wifi.
Your password could be intercepted by an attacker while using public wifi. You should never access accounts that store sensitive data on public wifi.