Protecting Your Digital Identity

Digital information surrounds us and is a part of our everyday lives.

Did you know:

• One half of all Facebook users login every day or multiple times each day?

• The average Smartphone user checks their phone 34 times a day?

The amount of accounts and login information people have for these accounts can be overwhelming. By nature we like to take the path of least resistance to get where we want to go and online login’s are no exception. We desire a convenient way to connect to all our information and generally speaking we are willing to sacrifice some security to get it.

Enter the bad guys…they know you won’t create hard to remember passwords and usernames. Times have changed and “The bad guys” are a lot more sophisticated in how they can break into your accounts. With so much of our personal information online, it’s an Identity theft buffet of information and there are millions of dollars being made by stealing information from the internet.

Here’s how you can keep your ‘digital identity’ safe

The bad news
• Don’t underestimate phishing schemes used to masquerade as a trustworthy entity that you know and trust. These schemes are getting more and more sophisticated. Identity thieves use social engineering to obtain your information.
• Anti-virus software alone will not keep you safe. Most attacks come from your email.
• Your firewall is useless against most attacks. You firewall will do fine to keep you free from simple attacks as it is only blocking in one direction. Sadly, the old ways we’ve been used to in the past are simply no longer sufficient. Attacks now also come from within private networks.

The good news
You can ensure your digital identity is harder to steal by employing some simple steps that are not difficult or time consuming..
1. Don’t use your ISP providers DNS (Domain name services). Why? Because it makes it harder for bad guys to talk to your computer. We use a service (FREE) called OpenDNS www.opendns.com they scan the internet and create a block list that will prevent your computer from talking to malicious sites. It’s easy to set up and worth it!
2. Don’t put your birthday (especially the year) on Facebook. Any information you may ever be asked to verify you do not want on sites such as FaceBook.
3. Use a different e-mail address for banking and all other financial sites. The bad guys won’t know this e-mail address and it makes spotting the Phishing emails easier. Remember, your e-mail address is also 50% of the security equation when you use it to login with.
4. Create 3 or more tiers of passwords. One for banking, one for e-mail and one for social sites. If you use at least a strong password for all you should be fine.
5. Avoid Passwords with personal information in them. For example a pet’s name and birth date. Anniversary dates or kids names.
6. Don’t click on links in e-mails you receive asking to login, and change your password or confirm account information. Instead, type the URL into your web browser instead or bookmark frequent sites to be sure it wasn’t a ploy to capture your confidential information.
7. Keep your PC updated with the last security updates and service packs. Sounds silly but I see 60% of first time client PC’s are not up to date.

Hopefully, you read this and were well on your way to protecting your identity. If not remember, taking the time to implement even a few of the steps above will lessen your chances of having your identity stolen. The time you will spend to repair the damage from an intrusion is far more than the time to protect your digital identity.

Robert Leist
Business Systems Consultant