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Yet more security advice
RICHARD WEINER
Technology for Lawyers
Published: December 16, 2016
Yep, it’s time again to remind all of you that you are not safe online, a warning bell that I’ve been ringing for the better part of two decades.
The dangers should be known to all, at this point- from losing data, to stolen identities, to losing elections. So we won’t go over all that this time. Instead, here is some good advice for being safe with your data.
The excellent Legal Productivity website has a list of seven rules to consider when going online.
First, use strong passwords that cannot be found in a dictionary. “Brute force” attacks generally use known words, so use combinations of letters, numbers, and punctuation in random order, or no letters.
In addition to that, use a password generator and password keeper that creates and stores a different password for every different use. If you use one password for everything, and that password gets out, you’re in trouble.
Getting a little more subtle, go into all of your routers and smart home devices (refrigerators, thermostats, etc.) and change their default passwords. Your smart TV can both show zombie movies and be a zombie itself. Internet down!
Next, never log into any account via a link in an email. Two words here: John Podesta (who was apparently advised by his IT department that that action was acceptable. Fire so many people….) Only log into an account from that site. Don’t use intermediaries. Directly type the IP address into the browser, or save the IP addresses in a doc and copy and paste from that.
Always lock/ password protect all portable devices. People lose these all the time. Also install wipe programs in all phones.
Make sure that every device has every security update installed, and turn on all automatic updates for devices, operating systems, and apps.
Don’t put any photos or other data on your devices that you wouldn’t want someone else to see. Unless you want to wind up on TMZ.
In addition to the above advice, I would add to encrypt every single bit of data in your control. All of it, without exception (back to John Podesta).