Tuesday, March 17, 2015

User names and passwords

One of the most important things with all of the technology that is in use today is remembering your username and password.

So, a lot of people do the obvious and use the same username/password combination (login information) from website to website.  Hey, why not?  I mean it's easy to remember, you don't have to write it down because you used your spouses middle name, right?

Here is the issue with that, say you get an email from your favorite online retailer and they claim that they have been hacked and you need to either create a new account, or verify your information.  The email look legitimate, and hey there has been a lot of hacking going on, so you click the link.  Hmm, that's odd, I don't recall giving myusedcollegebooks.com my date of birth in the first place, much less my mother's maiden name....but whatever, it's all in the name of security.

Okay, so now they have your personal information.  Some people quickly go "Hey, this is too much information for a free (item).  I'm getting out of here" or "Wow, I didn't think I actually had signed up for an account with (website)".  They close the browser window and get the heck out!  Well, one of 2 things have already happened, just by clicking the link to start with.  First, you have already installed a piece of spyware onto your computer and it's going to grab all of your information it can, or secondly it could be that you don't get your information stolen UNTIL you click on the register or whatever button to continue on the bottom of the page.  Do you know which one has happened?  Sometimes not even we know immediately with just a phone call, yes we are not all knowing all the time.  Yes, I said it, even the medics here at Web-Medic aren't perfect.  But, in our defense I will say that there are TEAMS of hackers, with thousands of hacked computers, creating the nefarious sites and links that can infect your system....daily!

So, first off what I would suggest to do is this:  Don't use the same password for every website that you belong to.  Banks have gotten better about requiring a stronger password, usually 6 characters minimum and alpha-numeric, but here is one that can up the ante without making your life miserable remembering passwords.  They are called special characters, yes we are talking about !@#$%^&*()?><":;{}[]|~`  Some websites allow you to use these characters in your password as well.  Also, don't forget about capitalization.  Remember mary is different than Mary, mAry, maRy, marY, or any other combination.  So you can go with <Mary> or !mAry? or mARY!! etc, all while sticking with your favorite name.  Still, do NOT use the same password with any financial institution that you use for say, your facebook account.  If someone gets a hold of your email address (typical username) and now they have the password that you use for EVERYTHING, they now have the "keys to the castle" so to speak.  You bank accounts, your social media, your credit cards, your email, all are going to be hacked.

First on the list of things to be hacked typically is your email.  With this they can then either behind the scenes forward all new mail to a new anonymous mail box they created, or change your password.  Either way, with access to your email, a quick search will often give them the sites they want access to.  Hey, e-statements save trees, right?  If they have enough information (remember the form you filled out?) they can not just get access to your private financial stuff, but change the login information because most likely they can get quick access to your "recovery questions" and the answers for the sites.


Are you sufficiently paranoid yet?????

Check back soon, April's newsletter we will go over password managers.  A way to remember 1 strong password that will then keep your other passwords safe.  Many will auto-generate strong passwords as well......


Stay tuned.

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