Protect Yourself Online

It is safe to say that over 80 per cent of our lives are now stored in the cloud. Banking, work and study all are now conducted online.  Post demonetisation, government is prompting cashless economy that means in upcoming days our money is being received and spent money digitally. Unfortunately, there have been a lot of cases of identity and information theft over the past few months. Information security, in 2017 will be going to become more important than ever. Here are some pointers to keep password safe

Use unique passwords for all your accounts

Use different passwords for each of your online accounts. In case a hacker gets past one your accounts, you don’t want to have made it easy for them to access details of your entire digital world.

Turn on two-step verification everywhere you can

Always opt for secondary or two-factor authentication for your passwords. This can be in the form of setting up security questions that identify you through details only you would be privy to. This is often a back-up in case you lose your password, but it can also kick in if there are multiple failed attempts to enter a password — which could indicate a bid to breach your account.

Password size does matter

The length of your password matters. The longer it is, the harder it will be to hack. The randomness of your password matters. Play around with alphanumerics, alphabet cases, and symbols. For instance, “Sanj9+*%ay” would be a really very strong password, if not a really strong weapon.

Use a password manager

Make it a practice to use password managers. A password manager basically stores all your complicated passwords, so you don’t have to worry about forgetting the hundreds you’ve created across your digital life. The best part is, all you have to remember is the one strong password you had to create to open your password manager. The rest of your head can be filled with butterflies and rainbows. Sticky Password, Dashlane, LastPass are some options to try out.

Often change passwords

Change your passwords frequently. That way you can hope to thwart a hacker just when he thinks he’s figured out how to breach your accounts.  Or quit using passwords altogether. By opting for an account key, you can enter your username and then have a notification code sent to a personal phone (or account that has not been hacked), which you can then key in to gain access. This can also double up as a means of secondary authentication, if the site requires you to enter your password as well as the notification code.

by  Sanjay K Bissoyi