It’s official. My new year’s resolution is to help as many people as possible secure and protect their critical personal and business information. We’ll focus on three simple steps anyone can take to protect themselves and their business.
- Use a secure password manager software
The first thing I recommend doing is using a dedicated password manager software that encrypts and protects your personal or business passwords in a simple to use, quick to access application. Many people simply store their passwords in Word or Excel files on their computers. Some take additional steps to password protect these files. Unfortunately, these are not good methods to protect your passwords as individuals with just a basic level of information technology expertise can hack these files as they provide very limited protection from intrusion. For your personal passwords, there are many free password encryption programs that can more effectively handle this. Simply search the Apple or Android app stores. Make sure to choose a program that encrypts your data and requires fingerprint identification or 2-factor authentication to securely access your information.
- Use encryption software when sending sensitive information via email
Maybe you plan to take out a loan with your bank, or you plan to join a new club, or talk to your attorney and you just need to send the other party some personal information digitally. Whenever you plan to do this, remember the following: When using a regular email client such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL or Outlook, your information is not secure while it is being transferred (in transit) from your email client to the recipients. Your information is secured and encrypted while it is in your inbox, but it is not as soon as it leaves it. The quick and simple way to fix this is to integrate encryption software into your email client.
When dealing with sensitive business and patient information, I recommend SecureMail. It’s an easy to use, inexpensive solution that will integrate into all the top email clients, while providing you the capacity and the security you need.
- Securely back up your information to a trusted cloud provider
Most of us have learned the hard way over the last 10 years that external hard drives (or jump drives) will eventually fail. The good news is that new solutions are available to consumers and businesses that do a far better job of reliability and inexpensively keeping a secure backup of our information.
On the home computer side of things, where you just want to securely back up files, there are many solutions. One simple to use solution is Google Drive Back-up and Sync. Google offers up to 15GB of free backup with this service.
For small business backup, I recommend DDS Safe. It’s going to provide your business multiple layers of backup protection, giving you more ways to restore your information. Plus DDS Safe will proactively monitor the health of your backup hardware and software to ensure your backup is safe and protected.
