{"id":39182,"date":"2014-08-14T13:00:40","date_gmt":"2014-08-14T13:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=39182"},"modified":"2014-08-14T11:48:43","modified_gmt":"2014-08-14T11:48:43","slug":"4-tips-for-protecting-your-passwords","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=39182","title":{"rendered":"4 tips for protecting your passwords"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s time to fess up: you use the same password for many \u2013 if not all \u2013 of your online accounts. Between email, social media accounts and web shopping sites like Amazon (AMZN<\/a>), it\u2019s hard to keep track of all those passwords.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s more important than ever to create unique passwords for every site that requires one \u2013 especially if you don\u2019t want to be a victim of hacking.<\/p>\n

Last week, news broke that a\u00a0Russian hacking ring stole<\/a>\u00a0more than 1 billion usernames and passwords and 500 million email addresses \u2013 purportedly the largest theft in the history of the Internet.<\/p>\n

Mat Honan<\/a>, a senior writer at WIRED magazine, has written extensively about how to protect online identities after hackers\u00a0nearly erased his digital life<\/a>\u00a0by simply retrieving his AppleID login-in credentials in 2012. Honan shared four simple tips for safeguarding your online accounts:<\/p>\n

Use a password manager<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are several password managers to choose from but Honan prefers the\u00a01Password app<\/a>. A password manager, which can be accessed on all devices, not only stores a user\u2019s passwords but will also help generate \u201cstrong\u201d passwords that can be used for future accounts. A password manager also points out passwords that are repetitive or easy to guess \u2013 both of which are big no-no\u2019s. And Honan says users should not be alarmed if their password manager gets into the wrong hands \u2013 \u201cgood password managers keep your info encrypted and someone would have to be very sophisticated to find your keychain, get access to your password keychain, and decrypt it in a way that’s usable,\u201d he says. (A digital keychain, for non-techies, is a built-in password manager).<\/p>\n

Perform a password audit<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople reuse passwords and that’s the thing that kills you,\u201d warns Honan. Stop using your pet\u2019s or child\u2019s name for all your passwords immediately — repetition presents the biggest security risk.<\/p>\n

Search your email<\/strong><\/p>\n

A hacker may already have access to your email accounts but is waiting to ruin your life. Some hackers will dig through personal messages to find password notification emails from sites, explains Honan, and won\u2019t make any immediate moves. Anytime you change or update a password for a site an email is usually automatically generated. Delete those emails immediately, says Honan. Doing so \u201calso hides tracks of the accounts you have that someone may be interested in,\u201d Honan adds.<\/p>\n

Wall off critical accounts<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hackers hate the two-step authentication process and users should request it for every account if possible. Most banks already offer this to online users and it provides a sophisticated way to thwart online pilfering because a user must pass two identification tests. A prompt will appear on screen when a user logs in to a strange, or unrecognized, device.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, Honan recommends that all passwords should \u201ccontain\u00a0long strings of letters, numbers, and symbols.”<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don’t have to be a big target to be a target,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty easy to practice good password hygiene.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: Yahoo Finance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s time to fess up: you use the same password for many \u2013 if not all \u2013 of your online accounts. Between email, social media accounts and web shopping sites like Amazon (AMZN), it\u2019s hard to keep track of all those passwords. But it\u2019s more important than ever to create unique passwords for every site […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":39184,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-39182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dr-akwasi-osei"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}