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The cybersecurity statistics are astonishing:
- According to The Identity Theft Research Centre (ITRC) Annual Data Breach Report, 2022 had the second-highest number of data compromises in the USA alone in a single year. At least 422 million individuals were impacted.
- So, unsurprisingly, 8 out of 10 people are worried about their online security, and 7 out of 10 no longer trust passwords to protect their online accounts.
- Yet 68% of people use passwords that are at least 5 years old, and on average, they use only 6 unique passwords to protect 24 online accounts.
That’s crazy.
Do you use the same password across multiple accounts? Have you been the victim of online identity fraud? If you answered yes to either of these, it seems you could use some help protecting your data.
Don't be the next victim of online identity fraud
While some experts say you can’t protect your personal data, we believe in doing our utmost to deter those who try to access it. Here are our tips for protecting your data.
Important password rules everyone should follow
When it comes to passwords, the rules are stringent (any compromise on the below, and you are compromising your data):
- Use a different password for every single account.
- Passwords should be 8-10 characters in length. For highly important accounts, such as your bank account, an even longer password isn’t a bad idea.
- Use numbers, symbols, and the upper and lower case as much as the account password allows.
- Never use names or number combinations that can be easily guessed (for example, addresses, family names, pet names).
- Change your passwords regularly and make sure you update your password manager (we’ll talk about that in a sec) at the same time.
- When setting up an account, and security questions and answers are requested, do not answer truthfully. Your mother’s maiden name provides no security at all, especially when you provide the correct answer to all the online accounts that ask for it. Instead, use a random answer and document it in your password manager (bear with us, you’ll find out what this is in a moment).
- If you need access to your partner’s passwords in an emergency, you may want to store their master password in your password manager (keep reading).
- Never write down your master password. NEVER!!! This is the only password you ever need to remember. So, there is no need to write it down. Got it.
- Make sure you change your master password regularly (refer to point 5 above).
Protect your passwords by following these stringent rules
Why you should get a password manager
We are online on at least one of our devices at least once a day: to book accommodation or transport, manage our finances, upload photos to social media, or maintain our website. To use these online services, we need an account, which requires a username/email address and a password.
I have more than 300 active accounts, and Sandra has 240. To ensure we use a unique password for each and every account, we store our passwords in our respective password managers: I use eWallet, and Sandra uses mSecure.
Both password managers work similarly – we use two different ones as we have different interface preferences:
- Passwords are stored in the password manager application in a 256-bit encrypted format.
- Each password manager syncs the databases to our cloud storage account regularly. Both the sync process and the file are also encrypted. This gives us peace of mind if our devices get stolen and a lot more control than password managers that store the data in their own cloud, such as LastPass.
We both have been using our password managers since 2011 and 2012, respectively and never had an issue. Knock on wood…
What else can you do to protect your data?
- Never enter your username or password on unencrypted or non-VPN Wi-Fi.
- Use the web or app-based two-factor authentication for accounts that support it.
- Turn on BitLocker Drive Encryption (to ensure your Windows hard drive is encrypted).
Have you ever been hacked or had your personal data compromised?
Have you ever been hacked or had your personal data compromised? What password manager do you use and why?
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