Managing Your Online Accounts Safely
With so many online accounts available at computer users’ fingertips, certain daily functions can be easily available simply by just logging on to the internet. Internet user are permitted to create multiple accounts for online banking, insurance services, loan payments, online shopping, retail websites, email, social networking or a number of other options. Because remembering user names and passwords for all of these accounts can become frustrating, many users utilize the same, easy-to-remember password for every account. This is a big risk to identity theft.
Computer hackers are aware of the habits of everyday users, and will exploit them for their own benefit at every chance they get. Therefore, online criminals understand that many Internet users use the same password for multiple accounts. Accessing account information for just one website, which may be far less secure than more sensitive accounts for online banking or credit cards, could allow access to a plethora of personal information that makes identity theft easy. For example, account information security for a Fantasy Baseball website may be far less strict than that of an online credit credit account service. Cyber criminals have techniques to decipher passwords to accounts with lacking security technology, such as a Fantasy Baseball website. If the user has applied the same credentials to their sports website as their banking and credit card websites, and the cyber criminal figures out the Fantasy Baseball password, he or she suddenly has access to sensitive information.
Another common risk comes in the form of phishing scams. Just last month, a National Senator fell victim to a phishing scam that requested his account password that claimed affiliation with his Yahoo email provider. His email account was subsequently used to send scam emails to people listed under his contacts. If his email account used the same password as his online banking account, an anonymous Web based criminal could have stolen the identity of Iowa Senator Bob Dvorsky.
There are a number of risks to anyone who is entering personal information online. The key is to protect yourself against the risks in a manner that is both effective and easy to manage. The good news is that there are many ways to protect yourself form online predators. The first and best way to do so is by using a unique record for each and every website that requires registration. By changing your log in credentials, you significantly minimize any attempt to expose your user name or password on other accounts. This may be a difficult habit to form, but using unique passwords or log names are one of the most effective forms of online protection you can leverage. Track your passwords offline to keep them safe and avoid exposure from others who want to access your accounts.
Another important thing to do is to is to setup secure passwords that are hard to guess. Users have traditionally made passwords that are easy to recall, such as maiden names, middle names or even pet names. The challenge that exists with this process is that these passwords are equally simple to guess for cyber criminals.
There are a number of techniques you can use to form complex passwords. These techniques vary in difficulty but have the same result, passwords that are difficult to hack. One popular method is that of using a sentence of ten words. This can be any sentence that’s easy to recall. Take the first letter of each word to form your complex password. The password should be simple for you to remember as you repeat the sentence in your head. Vary the capitalization of your keyword to increase the number and complexity of different passwords you create. Consider other methods that may make it easy for you to generate complex passwords that can be remembered without the aid of a specialized notebook or spreadsheet. Over time you’ll remember most of these passwords without the need for a prompt.
Protecting yourself online through unique logins may seem like quite a chore. Consider however the cost in time and money of recovering from identity theft. Taking the time to create new habits around profile creation, user names, and passwords is the best way to save yourself time in the long run.
Ascentive, creators of PC Speed Scan was founded in 1998 and develops easy-to-use software for consumers and companies that solve every day PC problems including maintenance, optimization, and security. Pc speedscan pro and other Ascentive products have been used by over 1,000,000 people and are now available in seven languages.