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As October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, it’s a good time to dust off your passwords and reinvigorate them to protect your data and identity both on and offline. The following is sage advice from our cybersecurity team.
When in doubt, throw it out
Links in email and online posts are often the way cybercriminals compromise your computer. If it looks suspicious—even if you know the source—it is best to delete or, if appropriate, mark it as “junk email.” Contact the company directly (via phone) to be sure the email is legitimate.
Think before you act
Be wary of communications that implore you to act immediately, offer something that sounds too good to be true, or ask for personal information.
Use stronger authentication
Always opt to enable stronger authentication when available, especially for accounts with sensitive information including your email or bank accounts. A stronger authentication helps verify a user has authorized access to an online account. For example, it could be a one-time PIN texted to a mobile device, providing an added layer of security beyond the password and username. Visit lockdownyourlogin.com for more information on stronger authentication.
Make passwords long
Combine capital and lowercase letters with numbers and symbols to create a more secure password. Length beats complexity. Websites like https://xkpasswd.net/s/ can help you generate an easy-to-remember, yet very secure password.
Consider using a password manager!
A password manager is a secure application that allows you to create, store and manage your passwords across all of your devices and services. They differ, but in general, most offer the following features:
- Helps you create secure, strong passwords
- Stores those passwords and allow you to automatically fill them in when you access websites and services
- Requires you to remember just one secure password—the one that gets you into the password manager
- Provides online, desktop and mobile access
- Gives you a grade on your existing password quality and alerts you when they’re not secure
- Allows you to set the length and make-up of automatically generated passwords according to your company’s password policies
- Protects your passwords with AES 256-bit encryption, with the decryption key stored only on your device so that your data is only accessible to you
- Check out The Best Password Managers of 2018
Avoid falling prey to data hackers. Reinforce your weakest links, so you, your information and those around you stay safe all year long.
View this resource for more tips:
- Habitu8 Awareness Videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCic3Uwg5OiLQJokATY00zGQ/videos
About the Author
Ron Rabena is Chief Administrative Officer, East Division, for Allied Universal.
