5 Tips To Protect Your Online Identity

Think about all of the things you do online. You email, you save and share pictures, you connect with family and friends on social networks, you bookmark recipes and ideas you want to do in the future…now imagine if one day you logged in and everything was GONE. How would you feel? This is what happened to Mat Honan. Within one hour hackers were able to destroy Mat’s digital life, including erasing everything on his iPhone, iPad and Macbook. He shared the whole story, including his mistakes and Apple’s huge security flaws, over at Wired. Mat eventually got 75% of his hard drive back but it cost him over $1600 to do so and he still lost some important documents and emotionally valuable photos.

Trend Micro brought this story to my attention and asked me, as one of their Digital Joneses bloggers, to share Mat’s story with you all and how we can make sure it doesn’t happen to us. They also sent our family tablets and stressed the importance of securing our tablets like we do our laptops. Trend Micro shared 5 things we can do to secure our tablets {and really our digital life in general}:

Tip #1:

Tip #2:

Tip #3:

Tip #4:

Tip #5:

I thought these were great tips. Some I use already, like receiving emails when someone signs into my Facebook account from a location I never have used before and not saving my credit card info on sites. Some were things I had never considered before, like leaving my social media pages open on my computer and linking sites together. Those things that make it easy for me to quickly get things done online also make it easy for hackers to access personal details.

Do you follow all of the tips above? If not, which ones do you struggle with following?

Past Challenges:

Are you {Digitally} Smarter Than a 5th Grader

Talking About Online Safety With My Preschooler

Spring Clean Your Digital Life

Mobile Security

Online Gaming Safety Tips For Children & Teens

The Olympics, Scams & You

(Disclosure: This post is part of a study sponsored by Trend Micro that I am participating in. As a Digital Joneses family we are receiving assets to complete our challenges but all thoughts are my own.)

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