Online Security and Protection
I’m not sure if I would call myself a technology geek or not. I love learning about the newest features coming to the iPhone, the software included in the latest Tesla update, and the best online productivity tools out there. But I still struggle every time I try to sync my phone to iTunes!
At my last job I was part of the informal software committee that identified ways the office could be more productive. And we came to enjoy our discussions on ways to protect our online information.
My company now is a completely paperless office, which means I live in the cloud all the time! This has a lot of advantages: I could fly to another country, forget to pack my computer, and still be able to set up shop and work within an hour. If my office burns down, I know I have duplicates of my files in other states, and can access them at a moment’s notice from my phone.
The issue of concern is securing that information. I’m up to speed on the latest encryption standards and security protocols, but these all come into play after one small lock: your password.
When I help clients set up online access to their planning software and investment accounts, I always hear the same complaint, “I can never remember all of my passwords!” So the default action is to just reuse the same password everywhere. But some websites make you include a special character in their passwords. And other websites require a password that is at least fourteen characters long. Pretty soon my default “Scott1” password became “Scott#1” and is turning into “Scott#12019!!!” Of course now you unintentionally have different passwords everywhere.
I have a solution to this problem! It’s the best piece of technology that I’ve added to my life in the past decade. (OK, right behind my iPhone.) An online password manager.
If you haven’t heard of this, it’s a program that remembers all of your passwords. As you log in to each new website, it will pop up a window asking if you want it to remember that password for you. And, it can even help you choose a strong password to match the exact requirements. A new password has to be over 12 characters and include lower case, upper case, numbers, and special characters? No problem!
It will even perform a security check of all the passwords you have stored and tell you which ones are strong, weak, or repeated too often across websites.
I use a program called LastPass, though there are many other highly reviewed ones that you can read about here.
The question I always get from people is “Aren’t you worried about storing your passwords online? What if they get hacked?” The answer is yes! You all should know by now, I worry about lots of stuff all the time. But I like to think about it this way: Hackers are trying to break in to password managers all the time. The software companies know this and are constantly beefing up their security to fight off these attacks. They have the best-of-the-best when it comes to security. Alternatively, if I were to keep my passwords in an Excel document on my hard drive (which I used to do),it would be much easier for a hacker to access it.
Now, you might be thinking I should “stay in my lane” and just focus on my clients’ investments. But that’s not all I do! When people ask me what all I do for clients, my response is “I make their lives easier!” Helping them in their day-to-day lives and ensuring their personal information is kept private and secure are things I’m passionate about!
Check out one of these password managers and let me know what you think. I hope you find it to be just as helpful as I have.
