Digital affects every area of my life, yet I am often an idiot when it comes to online security.
Hacking is not just something just for the US Government and large banks to worry about. Lots of companies and people have been hacked in 2018 with large data breaches or shutdown of their services.
A question we must all address is our preference for either A) security or B) ease of access. Most increases in security have an impact in your personal ease of access. For some lesser important services, ease will be most important. For your critical digital services (email, banking, credit cards) security might take the upper hand. For social media profiles some balance between security and ease is probably right.
I have 2 requests of you to make your (online) life more secure:
#1 Use Two Factor Authentication
The most important step for you as an individual is to set up Two Factor Authentication (2FA) for your email. 2FA is a security process in which you provide use 2 devices to verify your identity. In my case, I use my iphone as the second factor. Everywhere that gives you an option of 2FA… I’d switch it on.
#2 Use a Password Manager
…and create different passwords for every site that you use. I use Lastpass. It runs on my laptop, my ipads and my iphone. It will run on most devices.
The Basics of Cybersecurity
I don’t intend to write a full post on personal cybersecurity. Here is a basic introduction from the US Government: How do I protect myself from Cyberattacks?
Setting up 2FA on my Most Used Services
- Gmail email.
- Google account.
- Dropbox.
- Evernote.
- Twitter.
- Facebook.
- LastPass: Open LastPass on the web, click Settings > Multifactor Options
A Full Guide to Personal Cybersecurity
Here’s a much better In-Depth Guide to Personal Cybersecurity from Nick Rosener. I used it as a source for some of the ideas here, and also to do a fairly extensive audit of my current cybersecurity risks. Thanks to Nick for putting this guide together.
From Art of Manliness: How to Protect your Privacy Online