Basic Methods To Protecting Your Online Accounts and Memberships

Often we hear of people’s private information being leaked and this sometimes could have serious repercussions on people’s lives. Being prepared for the worst case scenario for your email, apps and social media is not something to be taken lightly and this article will provide some pointers on how to establish proper protection pertaining to online logins and security.

To start off with, let us begin with passwords, people often use the same passwords across online platforms due to the fear of forgetting their passwords, although this fear is justifiable as losing passwords could sometimes have us running in circles, it is best to have different passwords and there is a way around the ‘forgot password’ issue that is quite simple actually.

One method is to create two passwords and mix and match them across platforms, example you could use ElviS1935 as your password for your email and Pre$LEY197SeveN for your social media account. The password is basically based on Elvis Presley who was born in 1935 and died in 1977. This way you know for a fact that your password revolves around Elvis Presley and if you make a mistake with the combination, you would get it on your third or fourth try. Now, creating such passwords for your online logins would also allow you to create a 3rd or 4th password using the same combinations of the ‘primary 2 passwords’.

Example you could Elvi$pre$LEY3577 as your 3rd password, Elvi$3577 as the fourth and maybe Pre$LEY3577 as your 5th. This format allows you to create multiple passwords using just about any item. For instance using the name of your favourite car Mustang1964 and Bullit559 (the Mustang Steve McQueen used in the legendary movie Bullit). Once you have 2 passwords that are related, it is highly unlikely that you would forget and creating 3rd or 4th passwords using a combination of the first two is also easy.

The reason most people tend to forget their passwords is due to the fact that they create it out of a whim, for instance having a password such as Timbuk32111 and A$tro1234$cience where the numbers and word have no relationship is the main reason. Let’s face it; half the people maybe even more cannot remember their own spouses 8 or 9 digit phone numbers. To further enhance your personal level of security online you should always use two factor authentication processes if it is made available to you by the provider.

For instance multi-factor authentication that involves the use of your mobile device requires an attacker to successfully execute two very different types of theft in order to impersonate you online. First and foremost, the individual would be required to acquire the knowledge you have about your password and secondly the individual also needs your physical device that receives information about the login that you need to key in into your account to gain access to it.

In contrast for regular username – password entry, attackers only need to commit one type of theft (although they need to do it repeatedly) and they are in. In essence, multi-factor authentication has been proven to be an effective deterrent against cyber-attacks. As for the fear of losing your mobile device and being unable to access social media platforms due to it is also simple as platforms such as Facebook allow users to add multiple trusted friends who would be able to help you recover your account in the event that you lose your device. Choosing a good password that makes sense is critical towards creating a good password.

If you want to ‘up the ante’ the best thing to do would be to use both uppercases and lowercases in your password, but again, do not do it randomly, have a system, for instance only the 3rd and fourth letter in all your passwords use uppercases leaving everything else in the lowercases. In the instance of Elvis1935 which is a simple password alternating the 3rd and 7th entry to uppercase would give you “elVi$1(35” … [Uppercase of 9 = “(” ] and make your password that much more difficult to crack a 100 fold.

Please note that Elvis3577 or ElvisPresley3577 are technically still considered as weak passwords as good secure passwords will include at least 16 characters that use numbers, alphabets, symbols and as well as upper and lowercase letters.