Few people store compromising information online like the incriminating photos of celebrities in the news, but at the same time, we need to know how to make it difficult to access our personal data without permission. Here are some tips on how to keep your private information private.
- Don’t upload sensitive material anywhere. Even the most secure cloud storage services can sometimes be compromised.
- Look out for phishing emails. Phishers attempt to obtain personal information by faking a legitimate site’s emails or sites. They then ask the user to log in, which sends them the log in information.
- Add 2-step verification. On some services, like Gmail, you can turn on a setting which will send you a text with a code, which you have to enter in the browser. If Internet trolls don’t have access to your phone, they don’t have access to your 2-step verified accounts.
- Use unique passwords on each site. If you have the same password for Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail, then when someone gets access to your Gmail, that hacker has access to all of your other accounts. Services like LastPass (lastpass.com) allow you to generate secure passwords and save them on their servers, which are protected by a master password.
- Stay on top of tech news. If you hear that a major website has been compromised, change your password on that website.
Written by Dimitri Vasilkov’15
