Just about every day,
there’s an article in the newspaper or a story on the news that talks about
cyber-crime, usually in the form of identity theft. Most Internet users feel that they are safe
because they are “cautious”; they never download from strange websites, nor do
they open an e-mail unless they know who sent it. The problem is that these “cautious” people
forget one of the most important aspects to keeping their privacy safe: the password.
Maybe laziness or forgetfulness is the reasoning, but in this World Wide
Web full of hackers, many thousands of people are still using the same password
for everything they do online. Some may
argue that each password is “different”; however, having variations of the password
“ABCD1234” doesn’t count as being different.
If you or someone you know is guilty of this way of thinking, you should
really read on.
One of the first lines of
our privacy defense is the password.
Whenever you sign up to become a member of a website, you need to enter
a log-in name and a password. Most sites
will not accept passwords shorter than 8 characters and many require them to be
alpha-numeric and case sensitive. If you
choose the password “platypus1”, you will not be granted access into that site
if you mistakenly type in “Platypus1” on your next visit. The password must be an exact match. So, if you are a registered user on 10
different sites, you need 10 unique passwords.
“Platypus1”, “Platypus2”, “Platypus3”, etc. just won’t cut it.
In order to try to make each
password unique, many people will use different names combined with
birthdates. It’s not uncommon for a man
to have “Pamela823” (his wife and her birth date, August 23) for one site, then
choose “Henry312” (his son and his birth date, March 12) for another site. A problem could arise, however, if that man
signs on to Facebook using a public hotspot and is hacked. Once the hacker knows the Facebook password,
he could look to see the names and birthdates of the spouse and children. So, if the Facebook password is “Pamela823”,
this hacker will try that same password for an email account. If that doesn’t work, he’ll look to see the
son’s name and try “Henry312”. Hackers
are very good at what they do, so before you know it, this cyber-crook is going
through your bank account.
There is a corporation in
Virginia called Siber Systems, Inc., that realized how difficult it is for many
people to come up with unique passwords.
With this in mind, in 1999 they developed RoboForm, their first product
with consumers in mind. It now has
worldwide users numbering in the millions.
Demand was so great that RoboForm is now available in 30 languages.
RoboForm takes your
information and each time you register for a site, it comes up with a unique
username and password. You don’t have to
do a thing. The only password you need
to remember is the master password from when you first used it. So, you log on to your computer, enter your
master password into RoboForm and RoboForm goes to work for you after
that. It not only generates unique
passwords, it remembers them for you.
Another plus is that each password is encrypted, making it almost
impossible to be hacked.
Due to the success of the
original RoboForm, in 2004, Siber Systems expanded its product line with
RoboForm2Go. This portable version of
RoboForm is on a USB flash drive that you plug into your computer. No matter where you travel, you will have
RoboForm2Go with you. Not only that, it
will work in your native language.
RoboForm is the perfect
solution for creating unique passwords and then remembering what they are for
each site that you visit. It is a great
tool for keeping you safe when you surf the Net.
To add even more protection
to your Internet surfing, you should use a proxy server from a reputable
company. Please take the time to visit Privacy Partners and take advantage of the FREE trial offer. You will be glad you did once you see how
safe you feel knowing that you can surf the Internet from anywhere knowing that
every time you connect, your information is encrypted.
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