Do you use a password manager?
Do you do all the updates on your computer and devices?
If yes, you can stop reading. But you probably know someone who would answer no to those two questions.
In fact, you probably know many people, so keep reading anyway.
Last week Brad and I had Irvin Lemus, the head of Computing Information Services at Cabrillo College, on our radio show. He’s got a simple message for all of you out there who are afraid of things that will probably never hurt you. (Stranger danger? Wild roving viruses?)
Listen to KSQD to hear the whole conversation:
The threat you’re not scared of.
What’s likely to hurt you is often so close you don’t notice it. Lots of parents worry about vaccines….and then they strap their kids into cars, which are one of the leading causes of injury to children. Cars are just so much a part of our lives that we don’t think about them.
Another thing that’s too close to see for many of us in our daily lives is how easy we make it for other people to digitally hijack our lives.
This isn’t rocket science.
Lemus said that although there are many things you can do, there are two that are easy and you can do today:
1.Get a password manager and only use randomly generated passwords, a different one on each website you use.
Worried that password managers are complicated? They’re not. Worried that they’re expensive? They’re usually free. Worried about the guys at the company who will now own all your passwords? They can’t see them.
Think of it this way: Who do you trust more? The guys who work at a password manager software company who just love to find out what the latest scam is and make sure to keep their customers safe from it?
Or do you trust the scammers more not to scam you?
They will scam you. Get a password manager.
2. Do your phone’s and computer’s updates, every single time they ask.
Lemus points out that almost all of the famous break-ins that have happened happened because someone was using an old, unsafe piece of software or operating system.
Update, update, and update again.
Why me?
The break-in that you succumb to will probably not get you famous. But it will screw up your life. There are two easy things you can do to protect yourself, so do it today.
ps: Irvin agrees with me that Facebook does not deserve your real birthday. Give it a fake one, then you can find out how many of your friends actually keep track of when your birthday is!
