Few tips on How to Protect Your Personal Information and Passwords Online. Having a productive and safe online digital life is important for you and your family to get the most from online experiences.
Whether you love to shop, seek out new information or keep in touch with friends on social media, protecting your private information from viruses, spyware and hackers in the digital age should be a top priority.
The following video guide (In Amharic) prepared by Code Ethiopia will show you types of methods that you can keep your password safe.
Tips how to secure your passwords:
Be Careful About Your Passwords
One of the biggest weak points of online security is passwords. You have probably used a weak password before, and I know I have in the past.
Use Strong Passwords
Having strong passwords is one the first things you should do to protect your online accounts. A password should be over eight characters long and use capital letters, numbers, and symbols. Using longer and more complex passwords is better.
Do Not Reuse Passwords
After creating a password do not use it again! Doing this is a huge mistake many people make. Why is reusing passwords such a bad thing to do?
People Will Try to Guess Your Account Credentials
We need to role play as a hacker or account thief to understand the issue of password reuse. If I can successfully steal one account from somebody, I will try that same email and password combination at other websites.
Website Breaches
The website storing your login information can be hacked. If your login information is leaked online, don’t be surprised if some hackers try to log into other websites using these credentials.
Password Reuse Leads to Other Accounts Being Hacked
If this person does reuse the same password and email everywhere, trying the same combination will lead to me breaking into to other accounts.
Use passcodes for your devices
If you were to leave your smartphone in a coffee shop or taxi, would the person who found it be able to access what’s on it? That’s a scary scenario. Losing your smartphone is one thing, but giving the finder access to everything from your email and social media accounts to all the personal information you may have stored on the device could play havoc with your life. Make sure to use a passcode to help keep your apps, accounts, and personal information protected. Do the same for your laptops and even desktop computers.
