Protect Your Online Information - 5 Steps You Can Take Right Now

 

If your most private information was available online, what would you do for someone to see it? Just imagine: photos, videos, financial information, emails... accessible to anyone who wants to see them, without your knowledge or consent. We've probably all seen news stories about celebrities and political figures being less careful than those who weren't meant for public consumption. Without adequate monitoring of this confidential information, it may also be available to anyone with an Internet connection.

Keeping information safe and secure online is a growing concern for many, not just political figures and celebrities. Financial Privacy, Legal and Personal: It is wise to consider privacy precautions for your personal information. In this article, we'll look at five practical ways you can start protecting your privacy online while avoiding potential leaks, avoiding embarrassment, and keeping your information secure.

Many people use the same username and password across all of their online services. After all, there are too many, and it can be difficult to track down all of them with a different login and password. If you're looking for a way to generate and track multiple secure passwords, KeePass is a good option, plus it's free: "KeePass is a free open source password manager that gives you the tools you need to securely manage your passwords." Allows you to keep all your passwords in one database, which is locked with a master key or a key file, so you only have to remember one master password. Selecting the key file to unlock the entire database The database is encrypted using the best currently known most secure encryption algorithms (AES and Twofis)."

Don't assume the services are protecting your information

Online storage sites like Dropbox do a great job of keeping your information secure. However, if you're concerned that what you're uploading is particularly sensitive, you'll need to encrypt it: services like BoxCryptor will do this for free (price levels apply by tiers)

Be careful when sharing information online

We are asked every time we fill out a form or enter a new service on the web. Whose information is used for this? Companies make a lot of money by analyzing and using the data that we freely give them. If you want to be a bit more personal, you can use BugMeNot to avoid unnecessary filling that requests a lot of personal information and saves it for other uses.

Never give personal information

We all should know that giving out personal information (name, address, phone number, etc.) is a big no-no online. However, many people don't realize that they are posting on information forums and message boards, and lumping together social media platforms can create a very complete picture. This practice is called "doxxing" and is becoming a problem, especially since many people use the same username across all of their online services. To prevent this from happening, be extremely careful about the information you're providing and make sure you don't use the same username across all services.

Log out of sites often

It's a scenario that happens all too often: John decides to take a vacation from work and decides to check his bank balance during that time. He gets distracted and leaves the bank balance page on his computer so that the information is safe for anyone to see and use. Things like this happen all the time: financial information, social networking sessions, emails, etc. can be easily compromised. Best practice is to make sure you're on a secure computer (public or not) when you're looking for personal information, and disconnect from any sites you're using on a public computer so that other people with You can access that computer. You can access your information.

Prioritize online privacy

Let's face it: While we'd like to think that every person we come into contact with has our best interests at heart, it's a sad fact that this isn't always the case — and especially if applicable. Use the tips in this article to protect yourself from unwanted leaks of your personal information on the web when we're online.

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