5 Tips for Using Cloud Services to Keep Your Private Information Safe
Storing documents, photos and data in cloud storage can be very convenient. Some people feel it’s much easier to have everything in one place instead of carrying around flash drives or discs that contain your data. But recent events in the media may have you doubting whether the private information you keep in cloud storage is safe from hackers.
Here are five tips to help keep your cloud data safe from hackers:
1. Use strong passwords and do not use the same password for multiple accounts.
2. Don’t answer security questions honestly. Security questions can be hacked right along with passwords. Make up your own security question, if possible. The answer doesn’t have to be true—just something you can remember.
3. Turn on two-step authorization to require more than a password, such as a security question and a password to successfully sign in to your account.
4. Find out what you are automatically backing up in the cloud. If you don’t want your info to back up automatically, turn that setting off.
5. Understand that you have limited control over the security of what you store on the Internet. To put it into perspective, think of it as storing data on someone else’s computer. You cannot control what he or she does with it or how it is secured.