Unknown 5 Computer Security Tips for You!

Unknown 5 computer security tips, removing the mouse and keyboard, protecting against consumption of pods, laptop tips, hiding your computer in the network, These smart, simple ways to protect yourself in the physical and cybernetic mobile industry are admittedly inexpensive or free, but they tend to avoid various victims of technology. The idea behind such a method is not that one (or maybe…

Are you tired of every password requiring you to include 4 virgin sacrifices and the lost city of Atlantis? Are you ready to have your near encyclopedic knowledge of movie quotes, song lyrics and incredibly long emo song titles be put to good use? Than follow these easy 3 steps (+ 1 optional bonus step)

Jokes aside password requirements usually focus on 4 things:

length (usually 8 but sometimes 10 characters)

special characters

numbers

capital letters

All of which you can get with this method my dad taught me.

Choose a phrase

It can be a song title, lyrics, a memorable quote, whatever floats you boat. I recommend it be at least 5 words long, but you can play with the later steps if you need to stretch it out

Examples: “I’ve got a blank space Baby”, “Luke I am your father”, “I write sins not tragedies”

Now you take the first letter of each word and this becomes the base of your password.

Examples: igabsb, liayf, iwsnt

(tip: if it’s convenient you can add in a capital letter here like Liayf because Luke would be capitalized in that sentence. If not don’t worry we’ll take care of it later.)

Add numbers and special characters

So I generally choose my number by the number of letters but you can use anything that’s easy to remember eg. release year, year you first heard/saw

Then you connect the number to the base with a special character. You can put it  in front or behind.

Examples: 05!liayf, iwsnt#05,  igabsb@1989

At this point you’ve probably met 3 out of the 4 requirements depending on how long your password is at this point.

Add capital letters

This step also allows you to have a different password for different accounts that are easy to remember.

Say I’m making a password for tumblr and right now I’m working with igabsb@1989 as my base I could use: TUMigabsb@1989,  igabsb@1989TUMBLR, TUMigabsb@1989BLR

Now if you’ve completed all the steps correctly you should have a secure password that also-

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE! If your site allows password hints it’s easy to set than up too!

Not only is this password secure it is easy to set a hint for and to send to other people (as long as they know the format).

For TUMigabsb@1989, depending on how cryptic you want to be, you could say: “i’ve got a blank space baby”, “taylor swift needs her space”, “1989 song lyric” or just “1989”

This article gives some good online shopping tips.

Watch out for ridiculously good deals, especially if it is on a site that is not well known. If your on a well known site like Amazon or Walmart make sure you typed the address in correctly and the address of the website isn't something like  walmart.gooddeal.com. If this is the case, you might be on a phishing website. The part before the .com shows what website it is. Make sure you are on a well known site like Walmart, Amazon, etc.

Don't do online shopping or banking on public wireless networks. It is easier for hackers to steal your personal information on public wifi.

Try using gift cards instead of debit or credit cards.

Also, make sure the start of the website says https. The s stands for secure and all legitimate shopping and banking websites will use it to protect your information.

Here are some tips to keep personal information safe on your smartphone.

1. Password protect your phone to prevent thieves from getting into it.

2. If your phone is stolen you can use tracking and remote wipe. Apple's iCloud will let you track your device if it is lost or stolen. Set up iCloud here. After you have done that, you can go to iCloud.com and log in. It will also let you erase everything on your phone to prevent the thieves from getting your personal information. If you have an Android phone, this article explains how to use Google's Android Device Manager  which will let you do the same thing as iCloud. iCloud also works with iPads and iPod touches and Android Device Manager will work with Android tablets.

Be careful about what you post on Facebook. This article tells about someone who posted about their vacation on Facebook and came back to find that her house had been robbed by one of her Facebook "friends."

To prevent this from happening to you, don't post about your vacation until you get back or don't post the exact dates you will be gone. For similar reasons, you shouldn't post where you live, where you are, or where going to be on Facebook. If someone wants to stalk you and you post this information, they know exactly where to find you.

Be cautious about using Facebook apps. Many of these Facebook apps require access to your personal information. Do you really want to hand this information over to a complete stranger who might be an identity thief?  Before you install the app, Facebook will show you what information the app will have access to. Make sure you pay attention to this! Some apps will will also automatically send messages to your friends to try to get them to install the app too. If your going to install apps, stick with popular ones from large companies, like the app candy crush and pay attention to what the apps have access to!

If you've already installed apps and you want to remove them, on the left side of Facebook place your mouse to the right of where it says apps and click "more." This will bring up a list of apps you have installed. Click the pencil to the right of the app and click edit settings to see what information the app has access or click remove app. You can also remove the app by clicking the pencil and clicking remove app instead of edit settings.

Most viruses are not that difficult to deal with. However, CryptoLocker is one virus that you do not want to get. The virus is usually sent as an email attachment that pretends to be a pdf file. It encrypts files on your computer like word documents, pictures, power point files, and excel spread sheets. It then demands you pay a ransom (about $100 or $300) to decrypt the files. The virus can be removed like any other virus, but your files can't be decrypted without paying the ransom.

If you find out you have the virus you should disconnect your computer from the internet by disconnecting the Lan cable or disconnecting from the wireless network. This stops more files from being encrypted. If you have a back up of your files, you can remove the virus and restore your files from that backup. Other wise you have to choose whether to pay the ransom or lose the files. You may also be able to recover the files from a shadow copy even if you don't have a backup. Newer versions of the virus try to delete these though. If you have cloud backup the encrypted files might be automatically uploaded to your backup. Most backup services include a way to restore an older version of the file, but it has to be manually done on each file.

To see if a file attachment is being disguised as a pdf, open my computer, press the alt button, then press tools and click folder options. In the box that opens, click the view tab. Uncheck the box that says "hide extensions for known file types." After that, look at the file name. If it ends in .exe or .pdf.exe, it is not really a pdf file even if it has a pdf icon. Exe files can have viruses. The fake pdf can also be sent in a .zip file. Make sure you check the files inside to see if they are being disguised.

Thinking about selling or giving away your computer? Or maybe you want to sell, give away, or dispose of a hard drive. First, you need to remove any personal or confidential information. Delete your personal files in folders like My Documents or anywhere else you stored files. Also, uninstall any programs that you enter personal information into. Create a new user account and delete the old one to remove information that is stored in your user account. Windows stores information from some programs here.

Just deleting the information isn't enough. The data stays on your hard drive until your computer needs to save something else to the same location. There are programs that can undelete these files. In order to permanently delete the data, you need to do a bit level overwrite. The free version of CCleaner allows you to do this. Select tools then drive wiper and select wipe free space only. Selecting 1 or 3 passes should be fine. 3 passes means that the data is overwritten 3 times. Check the boxes next to the drives you want to wipe. Finally, click wipe to permanently wipe the data that you deleted from your hard drive.