A friend of mine is very security conscious (unsurprisingly, he wishes to remain anonymous) and believes that, since no one is going to watch out for us, we should each be better informed about how to secure our own online presences. So he put together this excellent overview of his recommended steps. I’ve seen a lot of guides like this, but this one seems more comprehensive — and doable — than others. Here are the highlights:
- Set up two-step authentication on all accounts that provide it
- Use Diceware to create secure passwords for all your email accounts
- Create a unique email address for your most valuable log-ins
- Use a good password utility to create unique, strong passwords for every site you visit
- Create fake security-question answers
- Freeze your accounts with all three credit agencies
- Don’t let Web sites store your credit card info
- Hide your Who-is listings if you own your own domains
- Set up WPA-2 encryption on your wifi router
- Never click links in email
- Prepare ahead of time for identity theft or hacking
Lots of detail and links to help you take action on each of these steps in the original post.
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