Do this one thing to make yourself more secure on the Internet.

2020-08-18 0 By SecureSteve

When you hear about a breach, with millions or billions of login accounts stolen, what is your first response? Most of us don’t give it much of a thought. What about when you get a specific notification email from that same company that was breached? Perhaps you might pause, and then move on.

Many of those notification emails give disclaimers about what data was stolen. In the majority of them, login information is stolen. The number one recommendation after a data breach? – Change your password. What is the one thing you can do to make yourself more secure on the Internet? – Change your password.

So, I should change my password then? Which password?

Nearly every security professional says that “best practice” is to use a different password for every website you need to login to. You might ask yourself, how am I supposed to memorize all of those passwords? How do I even begin to start changing passwords?

The number one recommendation after a data breach? – Change your password.

So, to be fair, there is more than one step to accomplish this one thing. It may seems like a lot of work. However, this series of posts is set up to help make your password hygiene and security top notch, but in a doable way.

Part 1 – Identify your Logins (figure out where you have accounts, and what they are for)

Part 2 – How strong does my password have to be? (learn about password strength, and what makes a good password)

Part 3 – Learn about Password Managers (stop trying to remember all of those pesky logins) *coming soon*

Part 4 – Generate your unique passwords (make them complex using available tools) *coming soon*

Please note, if you get through part 4, at least for your critical accounts, you are more secure than a majority of the populate. Pat yourself on the back.

Part 5 – OTP, 2FA, multi-factor, etc (what do these mean, and why should I care?) *coming soon*

Remember:
Passwords are like underwear;
you don’t let people see it,
you should change it very often,
and you shouldn’t share it with strangers — Chris Pirillo