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10 WAYS TO PROTECT YOUR

ONLINE IDENTITY

1. PASSWORDS 3. BEWARE THE
PHISHING SCAM
The most common way to protect your
online identity is to focus on creating strong
To avoid being the
passwords. When creating a password,
victim of a phishing
choose something that will not be easily
scam, never open
cracked or decoded. Never use a word or
emails or attachments
number that someone can associate with
from unknown senders, or anything unusual from
you such as a first, middle or last name, a spouse or child's name, address,
known senders. Spam email is getting more and more
phone numbers, employers, or other identifying letters or numbers. Try a
sophisticated. Never respond to any emails with account
passphrase rather than a password. Your passphrase can be a favorite song
info or passwords. Banks will never ever ask for your
lyric, quote from a book, magazine, or movie, or something your kids said last
information in this way. If in doubt, call the bank directly
week. Think of a saying or series of words that is easy for you to remember,
to check or, better still, delete the email. Additionally, avoid
and use the first letter of each word in the phrase, along with a combination
anyone offering money, unfamiliar job opportunities or
of numbers and special characters, as your passphrase. Obviously your
requests for donations to charities as this might be a plot to
password should be a combination of letters and numbers, but don't stop at
obtain your personal information and online identity.
the bare minimum. Don't use the same password for everything, use multiple
passwords!
4. PASSWORD-
2. LOOK FOR ENCRYPTION PROTECT YOUR
Before making any sort of financial WIRELESS ROUTER
transaction or entering personal data online,
The wireless router that
look for signs that show whether the website
accesses the Internet at
is encrypted or not. To do this, look for two
your home or business
things: the trusted security lock symbol and
should always be password protected. When you do not
the extra "s" at the end of http in the URL
have a password on your wireless network, anyone in your
or web address bar. When you are on the page that's asking for your credit
range can use and access your Internet, even a hacker.
card information, the "http" changes to "https" when it is a secure site. At
Not having a network password allows unauthorized
the same time, a lock symbol will also appear on the right side of the address
individuals within proximity to hijack your wireless
bar or at the bottom left of your browser window. These two signs show that
network. Even if they're merely attempting to get free
the site is encrypted, which means nobody will be able to see information as
Wi-Fi access, you don't want to inadvertently share private
it's sent to the website owner. This keeps your name, phone number, address,
information with other people who are using your network
credit card number and other sensitive information from being seen by
without permission. For extra security, hide your Wi-Fi
anyone else. Many of the vital online services (Google, Facebook, Twitter,
network: set up your wireless access point or router so
etc.), allow you to only connect to their servers via an HTTPS connection.
it does not broadcast the network name, known as the
This will encrypt any stream of data between you and the service, ensuring
Service Set Identifier (SSID).
that anyone using a packet sniffer on a (usually public) Wi-Fi
network can't obtain your login data. Never work at a coffee
shop without it!
Jeff Bohr | Naples Mac Help 239.595.0482 | jeff@jeffbohr.com