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Millions of user accounts were compromised. Usernames, passwords, home addresses and credit card information -- lax Web site security often allows hackers easy access to boatloads of personal information. We can blame corporations for poor security and hackers for maliciously attacking Web sites, but there's a third party often at fault in these attacks: ourselves, the users. No, it's not our fault Web sites get hacked. But poor Web safety habits put us at risk when we shouldn't be. How often do you use the same username and password? Every time you create a new profile? If someone hacked your Facebook account, could they just as easily get into your e-mail inbox? Reusing passwords -- or using weak passwords -- makes you an easy target for identity theft. Remembering multiple passwords can be a pain, but there are Web services that can help. We'll talk about one of the most popular options later in this article.
Backing up photographs and important documents has never been easier. Google Docs and Gmail can take the place of Microsoft Word and Outlook Express. Banking sites take the place of expensive finance applications. All we have to do is be safe while we use them. Here are some simple safety tips for keeping your data secure in the cloud. First up: making your passwords as tough to crack as Fort Knox. Passwords are designed to keep our information safe from prying eyes. They're like locks. A hacker may force the door and break your lock, but most of the time a strong lock keeps people out. But let's be honest: Passwords are annoying. Remembering them is a pain, so we often take the easy way out and use simple passwords that we won't forget. But if they're easy to remember, they're also easy to guess. If you use one of those passwords, change it.
The more complicated your password is, the safer your data will be. It's true, complex passwords won't be as easy to recall. Find a safe place to record your passwords if you can't remember them. Once you have a good password, what you do next is just as important: Don't spread it around. The annoyance of remembering passwords strikes again. It's bad enough that we tend to use simple, easy-to-remember passwords for our Web logins -- we also tend to pick one or two passwords and use them again and again for our e-mail, banking, Facebook and everything else. That's bad. In fact, that's really bad. If your password is compromised, someone could easily gain access to your e-mail account. And change that password. And then go to every site you're registered on and change those passwords -- the replacement passwords are always sent to your e-mail address. Use different passwords for different sites.
At the very least, change up letters, symbols and capitalization if you plan to use the same word or phrase across multiple sites. Make absolutely sure you don't repeat a password across sites that have your credit card information or social security number. Your e-mail password is the most important. Keep it secure and don't use it for any other sites. Even if you trust them, it's not a particularly good idea. The more people who know your passwords, the greater the chances that those passwords could be accidentally compromised. All these password rules make our online lives more secure, but they don't make them easier. Next up: a tool for taking some of the inconvenience out of password management. LastPass is a password management utility that locks all of your unique passwords behind one master password. That means you can create separate logins for e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, cloud storage and everything else you do online, but still access those accounts by memorizing one single password.
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