6.Digital Security

Passwords are the bane of my life. I swear I am thee worst person at remembering them. I think I'm doing well having a different password for every platform I use but quite a lot of the time I have to send the dreaded forgot password request. I think to myself if I don't know the password how can hackers know it ? I know they can though as unfortunately I have had my credit card details taken from a site I used online and someone booked a nice holiday on it. Luckily though we always check our balance so it was caught quickly. I get frustrated when I have to go through the dreaded verification procedures when I forget my passwords but I know its worthwhile in the end.

 So how can I get better at remembering passwords? 

Well firstly I checked that none of my passwords were on the list at  https://s13639.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Top-100-Worst-Passwords-of-2017a.pdf. All clear, ✔️ passed that first challenge.Then I tried my passwords in https://howsecureismypassword.net/ and it knew that it was all letters and numbers. Although it said it would take 38 million years to crack the password the site recommends adding some symbols to my passwords to make them more secure.

So my passwords seem safe so now to the remembering them part. 

At https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/section/information-for/individuals-families they recommend using 3 word strong and memorable password such as redhousemonkeys. You could also add numbers or symbols to add extra security. This for people like me who always forget our passwords is a clear and hopefully easier way to remember passwords in the future. I am going to try this from now on. Wish me luck. Every 8 weeks at work we get a reminder to change our passwords and this system works well, its strange as I never seem to forget my work password. 

I have a recently new phone so I don't have many apps installed on it. I checked the privacy settings on my phone to ensure what permission I was giving each app. Apart from Facebook and Instagram no other apps were tracking my location. These apps and Snapfish have access to my camera which I feel is ok. I do not  have my banking apps on my phone. I only have them on my main computer. This way I am keeping my information as safe as I can and only accessing this data on a locked trusted source, my Wi-Fi which is password protected. I would never look at this type of information over free Wi-Fi. This video from Metropolitan Police https://youtu.be/hJ5-3vDOsAA reinforced my thoughts on why I wouldn't log on unless I know its on my secure line.

The one thing I did not know was that when you update your system the settings can return to default. This is something I will look out for in the future. I found this out by reading about it and then when I checked my phone. I noticed that my iCloud had backed up my pictures. I don't back up my pictures I take them ,print them off and then delete them. My iCloud had lots of pictures in it that should have been deleted and no longer there.