Secure your business #2

Test Question No. 2: I use a family member's (or my own) birthday for my password

It's easy to remember, but so common it's among the first things hackers will try. If someone has sent you an electroninc birthday card to the email address you use for your logins, they've unwittingly sent valuable clues to your login out into the universe.

Remember: the more valuable the information you are logging into, the more valuable your password becomes to a would-be cyber-thief.

Use common sense, and remember:

Don't send a username and password in the body of an email message! Email is not private; remember how I compared it to a postcard, readable by anybody with the knowledge? Please keep this in mind. It's one of the most common ways for passwords to be compromised.

Create strong passwords--more and more websites let you know if your password is weak. Keep a document or notebook in a safe place, and write down your creative unique logins; use a Macintosh computer and Firefox browser, which will allow you to save all your logins behind a single master password, which you set. Then you have just one whammy of a password to remember, and Firefox does the rest. No one can access those passwords without your master password.

There are several pieces of software that will save all your passwords in one place.