First of all, lets talk passwords.  Yes, I know, you’ve heard it all before: make sure it’s long enough; make sure it’s unique; use caps, symbols, and numbers interspersed in your password.  These are all great things to do by the way, so still keep doing them!  But here are a few things you may not have thought of (or maybe you’re super smart and did, but keep reading anyway):

• Linking your logins to social media is a bad thing.  Remember that Facebook outage recently?  That could have gone much worse than it did.  When you link your logins together you’re basically making a road for a hacker to follow into ALL of your personal things….kind of like when your sibling rummaged through your underwear drawer when you were a kid and found your diary (or your pot stash).  No one wants that.  So, unlink as much as you can and have separate logins for all your apps and games.

• Change your passwords regularly!  If you can’t come up with unique passwords all the time, there are password managers out there that will do that for you (and remember them too!!).  Personally, I use LastPass, but there are a lot of good, free ones out there.  Do some research.

• Use 2FA whenever possible, especially for things like banking, health records, or other really personal actions.  2FA stands for 2 Factor Authentication – so, you can have a combination of things to log into your accounts.  Those things include something you know, something you have, or something you are.  Examples:  something you know would be a password, something you have could be an access card (like your debit card), and something you are could be a fingerprint or retina.  The most common 2FA method used online is the username/password, then a texted code to enter the site.  You must have all three of these things to gain access.

Cindy