Some ideas to protect your password
Ian Service
IT Manager, Landscape Ontario
Whenever signing up for a new service on the web, you must pick a password and a user name. We hear it time and again that members have trouble, or are tired of remembering all those names and codes. Here’s some tips, security considerations and general ideas to help protect your business from Internet predators.
A recent Twitter interaction fooled a few of our members into clicking onto a link, which tricked them into giving away their Twitter log-in information. Fortunately, it’s easily fixed if you get tricked into something like this by simply changing your password to log into your account at
Twitter.com. You should also take the opportunity to ensure that any unwanted Twitter apps have access revoked to your account. Click Apps under Settings and then click Revoke Access next to any suspicious looking app, or any app you’re not using anymore. Now you can enjoy the safety of a protected account.
Do you use the same password for other services?
There’s more you may need to do to stay protected though. If you use that same password on more than one site or service, you should change it everywhere else, too. When you provided your credentials to that malicious site, you have no clue where else your password could have ended up and if you use the same email address for Twitter, an automated program could be used to test your email, user name, or password combination with any number of other sites to compromise your data there too.
In order to prevent a data compromise from happening to you, the first rule is always stay cautious on the net. Even if emails or direct messages come from trusted associates or family, it doesn’t mean that they were intentionally sent by those people. The next thing you can do is use a piece of password tracking software like
Last Pass or
KeePass. These will allow you to supply its software with one complicated password, while it automatically encrypts all of your other passwords. Basically, it makes it so that you never need to remember more than one password, but you get the benefit of using many complicated passwords for each service you visit on the web. Alternatives like iKeePass or
1Password also exist for your mobile phone, so your phone can store all your complicated passwords instead of your computer.
Easy to remember passwords
While we’re on the topic of passwords, a fantastic way to create passwords is through a few random words that mean something to you, but would be incredibly difficult to guess for someone else. A password like 67gfgaGd12# is pretty hard for us to remember, but would only take a few weeks for a computer to crack. Instead, a password like Seculars Blackberry Tonka Professional is much easier for you to remember, but the uppercase letters and spaces make it complicated for someone else to guess when looking over your shoulder, and it would take hundreds of years for a computer to guess.
It’s a great idea to verify that your company’s password policies provide security and work for this modern age. Even if you have great passwords on all of your accounts, if one of your team leaders doesn’t have lock passwords on their phones and it’s stolen, any messages with sensitive information could unintentionally be exposed. In instances of missing/stolen phones, many email providers are able to remotely wipe your devices so no data gets in the wrong hands. Ask your email or cellular provider what protections they have in place for your data, mobile or with your computer.
