If you’re on a site you don’t already know and trust, take a moment to pause and get a second opinion from someone you trust.
This simple pause can help you avoid many scams.
We believe it’s critical to have someone you can talk things over with. We call this trusted person your “Protection Partner.”
In Episode 4 of our Super Simple Security Principles podcast, we discuss who makes a good Protection Partner. We also dive into some other ways to use this simple practice to stay safe.
I understand – it's convenient. But let me give you a compelling reason to stop.
When you reuse a password and it's leaked in a data breach, hackers take that email and password combination and use it to try to access your other accounts.
In 2024, data breaches are happening multiple times a week. You can read all the painful details here.
Maybe you don't use the exact same password everywhere – perhaps you have a few variations or make small tweaks for each website. Unfortunately, these strategies are no longer effective enough to keep your accounts safe. Learn why by listening to Episode 2 of our Super Simple Security Principles Podcast.
Are you using Windows built-in virus protection and firewall? If you're using Windows and not using them, you should be. If you're not sure, read our forum post with instructions.
Do you update (patch) your device software regularly?
If you don't, you should consider doing so. Each month, on the first Tuesday of the month, Microsoft releases an update fixing, on average, over 70 vulnerabilities in its software (every month — it's called Patch Tuesday!).
Other vendors have different schedules, but security patches are common and frequent on all platforms.
The vulnerabilities are public once the fix is released, so the bad guys frequently use that information to build hacks to take advantage of people who haven't updated yet.
I debated the subject of this email a bit. It's the sort of subject that might raise red flags because it sounds scary, and I don't like to scare people, but something happened recently that scared me a bit.
National Public Data, a company that collects credit information on almost everyone in the U.S. (Name / Address / Birthday / SSN) got hacked.
If you live in the U.S., it's very likely your data has been compromised, as almost everyone I've checked in the US has been. Their valid SSN and other information are now freely available to hackers.
You can go here to check if your information is compromised.
We will be releasing another episode this week to give you advice on what to do if your information has been compromised, which is likely if you live in the U.S.
Did you know you can use Ctrl + or Ctrl – to zoom in or out on a webpage?
Ctrl 0 will reset the zoom level to the default. (On a Mac it's Cmd instead of Ctrl).
On your phone, of course, you can use pinch gestures. But on a computer, these shortcuts are handy.
Do you ever connect to WiFi at a hotel, airport, or coffee shop? Any time you connect to a WiFi hotspot in public, you're at risk if you aren't careful.
A VPN is a simple solution to removing the danger of connecting to public WiFi. It's like insurance for your data. If you're using public WiFi, you should be using a VPN. We discuss it more in two podcast episodes, one about VPNs generally and one about ExpressVPN. I've been using them, and am very happy with them.
An alternative if you only use public WiFi occasionally is to tether to your phone's data connection.
Have you ever clicked “I forgot my password”? The way this works — sending you an email to reset your password, effectively means that anyone who gets access to your email gains access to every single account you have online.
Don't re-use your email password, and make sure it is a strong password. It should be at least 12 characters long, and have a mix including upper and lower case and some numbers & special characters. Listen to our podcast episode to learn more.