Securing Your Information

We spend so much of our time online and use the internet for so many things that we often overlook how vulnerable it makes us. In addition to all the fun and entertainment we have online through social media and games and other things, we’re also online doing things like taxes and shopping and business transactions. As a result, there’s a lot of information that we have willingly shared on the internet that we can’t know for sure if it’s safe or not.

Of course there are various methods of security such as antiviruses, security questions, various passwords, and etc. but the issue is there is just as many different ways to get your information with or without you knowing: phishing, pharming, and keylogging are just a few. Phishing is when people send you messages in order to trick you into giving them your information. Pharming is similar, but hackers use fake websites in order to trick you into logging in your information for them to use later. Keylogging is a bit different and a lot more difficult: it is when there is a program that can record a person’s keystrokes, effectively tracking everything that a person types down to the letter.

Many hacking attempts are geared towards finding someone’s information through getting their password, and thus access to their private information. There are many misconceptions about what constitutes as a strong password. Passwords are an integral part of online security and nearly anything online uses a password, so it is very important that your password is strong. The issue is that this article emphasizes password security and how to better protect yourself from your information being stolen. Many hackers will resort to using brute force to find someone’s password, which is using a program to try all possible combinations of a password. However it is fairly easy to make a password unable to be brute forced.

The easiest way to make your password stronger is to instead of thinking of a password, think of a passphrase (like a sentence instead of a word): use a memorable phrase or sentence instead of a word as a password to add complexity and memorability. Memorability is a key component because sometimes the requirements we have to have in our passwords (symbols, numbers, etc.) made it harder for us to remember so we write them down and store them, often on our computers. However this makes it easier for it to be stolen, especially if it’s an unsecured document.

Although there’s a lot of ways for your information to be stolen, there are just as many ways for you to protect yourself. There are many threats to your security and the easiest first step to securing your information is to improve your password.