Archives - Privacy


Use fake answers for security questions

Many account recovery features include answering security questions such as your father’s middle name or the city you grew up in. But you don’t necessarily have to use real answers, which would make someone trying to break into your account unable to even if they knew such information. If you want to say your father’s […]

Be cautious when supplying personal information online

Unless you trust a site, don’t give your address, password, or credit card information. Look for indications that the site uses SSL to encrypt your information. Although some sites require you to supply your social security number (e.g., sites associated with financial transactions such as loans or credit cards), be especially wary of offering this […]

Never throw out old hard drives without securely destroying them, even if they don’t work

This might seem like a pain, but hard drives don’t lose their data very easily. If you want the information on a hard drive to be permanently eliminated, make sure the parts that house the data are destroyed before discarding it. This means destroying the platters and circuit board inside the hard drive completely beyond […]

Be careful what permissions you do give to apps because many are optional

Most of the time, an app doesn’t really need to know your location. It’s usually just for the sake of convenience so you don’t have to plug in your address manually. Still, it’s more secure to only give location access to apps that need it, so only give permissions to apps that you’re comfortable with […]

Don’t write down your login information on Post-It Notes

This might seem obvious, but you may be surprised at how many people stick their login credentials to their monitors at work. This can potentially give access to anyone if you so much as step away from your workstation for a few minutes. If the bad actor doesn’t sit down at your desk directly, they […]

Try switching off automatic content recognition on smart TVs

Lots of the latest smart TVs include automatic content recognition (ACR), which studies everything you view on the device – whether it’s streamed over the internet, cable, or via broadcast television – and uploads this information to a server for use in a recommendation engine. To guard your privacy, turn off this setting; its name […]