Pictures of naked celebrities, you say? My response is to quote my teenaged son: “If you don’t want naked pictures of yourself showing up on the Internet … then don’t take naked pictures of yourself!”
Nowadays almost everybody is using some form of cloud storage. Whether you know it or not, you’re probably using cloud services such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, and, of course, Apple’s iCloud. These services are easy to use, fast, and very often inexpensive or free.
OK, I have to say it: “I told you so!” Frankly, stolen pictures of naked celebrities may ultimately prove to be a good thing because previous online breaches involving the theft and loss of personal information (medical, SIN, credit card numbers) did not get much media attention. Remember the recent security breaches at Home Depot and Target? Or, more recently, the exposure of 868,000 credit cards that occurred at 330 Goodwill stores?
If you have concerns about cloud security (and you should have concerns), here are five basic security principles to follow:
- Always consider cloud services as potentially hackable. To help mitigate risk of being hack, use different passwords for every account (Google, iCloud, etc.), and use long passwords (my home’s WIFI password is 28-characters long). Always use at least one special character—such as # $ % ? !—in your passwords. These simple steps will make your passwords just a little bit harder for hackers to crack.
- A simple password will not do the trick. Whenever possible, use two-factor authentication for password protection. This may seem complicated, but it’s not. Many cloud services will send an SMS to your mobile phone to make sure that you’re the one trying to login to your own account;
- It’s always someone else’s fault when you lose your data. But it’s worthwhile to make things more difficult for hackers to access your stuff. Always encrypt your folders or files containing any sensitive data to protect them from unauthorized access. Make backups (and encrypt your backups);
- Take Yoda’s advice: “What you put in the cloud, wisely you should choose.” Avoid putting in the cloud personal information such as SIN numbers or your list of passwords … or naked pictures of yourself, for that matter. And again, keep your personal data encrypted. You will find all kinds of seamless encryption solutions on the Web. Don’t forget to encrypt your USB keys if you have confidential information on them;
- Invest just 20 minutes of your time to be secure. Go through the documentation of all of your online service providers (iCloud, Facebook, phone, wifi router, etc.). Find out the safety features available and tighten all of them.
In the end, if a hacker has set his goals on getting your personal information, making his life harder might get him to switch his target.
Last words: Always harbor a slight sense of paranoia … it’s useful before making any decision about what you’re about to do online with your personal information! You should ask yourself, “What if…”
