When did you last back up?

When is the last time you backed up your important data? Not just photos of your dog, but anything important on your cell phone, computer or tablet?

March 31st is World Backup Day, an attempt to educated everyone on the importance of regular backups of all sensitive data. According to the website:

30% of people have never backed up any data

113 phones are lost or stolen every minute

29% of all data disaster are caused by accident

1 in 10 computers are infected with a virus every month.

Pretty frightening statistics. The easiest way I explain it to people is to think about what you have on your devices. If they all suddenly caught on fire, what would you lose that is irreplaceable?

Taxes, mortgage documents, anything that you might need access to at some point should be backed up. And if all you have is a paper copy, get it scanned and back it up. 

So where should you put it? If you're thinking ahead, you already have a fire safe for your important documents. Go to your nearest electronics store and pick up a USB flash drive. Save all your documents, photos, etc and toss it into the safe. I'd advise you to set a reminder every month to revisit these backups in the event you've added anything else important.

How about your phone? Most of you probably use either iPhones or Android devices, and both have built in backup abilities. iPhones can be backed up using iTunes and I would suggest backing up to their cloud services as you will be able to access that backup from any computer you can log into. If you back up to your computer and the hard drive crashes, you're out of luck.

Android devices backup and restore with google. How to do so depends on your carrier and device. Search through the settings app on your device for a way to back up the phone, or contact the help line at your carrier.

Another option is cloud storage. All of my important documents are immediately loaded onto the storage I pay for. Many places will give you free storage up to a certain amount (5GB usually) but you can pay for more if you need it.

Remember: There are two kinds of hard drives: Ones that have failed and ones that haven't failed yet. No computer storage should be considered forever, so back up often and in multiple places. You never know what could happen.

The fear of the question "I Don't Know"

People don't like to admit to holes in their knowledge. There is a phrase I don't hear enough of, and it's "I Don't Know"

I Don't Know doesn't mean you are stupid, it just means you don't know. If someone asked me about catalytic converters, I would shrug my shoulders and say I Don't Know because I'm not a car mechanic. At best, I can change my oil. Anything beyond that, I need an expert.

Just, uh, jiggle the thing. No, the other thing.

There are lots of things I don't know that you might, and there isn't any shame in asking.

I bring this up because when it comes to security, many people don't know the basics of keeping themselves safe, and just assume whatever comes with the setup of their device is good enough.

I'm going to tell you now that unless you are a computer and network security minded person, or had one do all of your setup, you probably have some holes in your security net.

And that's ok. The point of this blog is to make you a little more secure and the world a little less frightening. News organizations love to scream about hackers stealing thousands of credit cards, but overall credit security is sound and keeping you protected.  

There is no such thing as fully secure, but you can make yourself a hardened target. A home network that is too much to be bothered with will usually be left alone. If someone can't access your stuff in a few minutes, chances are they will just leave it alone.

So ask questions, find answers and do a little research. If you can check the oil in your car, you can do the basics of security, and this blog can help

Five Steps to Keep you Safe: Day two, Passwords and user accounts

Every secure site you use, whether it's a forum for chatting or a site for online shopping, requires the use of a password. Of course, nothing is a 100% guarantee for safety, it helps protect your private information.

2: Password protect your computer

If you boot up your computer and don't have to enter a password, you're leaving yourself open for all kinds of infiltration. This is especially important if you take your laptop anywhere that has a public wifi connection. Too often I've been in a Starbucks and and seen other computers pop up in my network discovery. How many of them are protected?

And while you may not think you have important documents stored on your computer, there are plenty of files an unscrupulous person could pull off and exploit.

So how can you put a password on your computer? More than likely if you're using Windows, you are either on Windows 7 or 8. There are plenty of tutorials out there, but I'm a big fan of the "For Dummies" website because of its ability to break down the steps in a way for even the non tech savvy to understand.

Setting a password in Windows 8

If you're still on Windows 7, open the start menu, click on Control Panel and choose User Accounts and Family safety. Then choose User Accounts. Alternatively, you can press start and search for User Accounts in the search space at the bottom of the start menu. 

From there, Click Create a Password for your account. If you're the only one using the computer, it will automatically put a password on the only account available. But from here, you can create other accounts for family or children if they also use the computer. Creating different users for different people will keep others from accidentally deleting any of your personal files, and will allow you to set up other restrictions, which is great for a shared computer in a house with kids.

One final point: When setting up a new computer, you generally create a username, which in turn creates a name for your computer. If you use the username "Sarah", the computer will automatically be named "Sarah-PC".

This creates another hole in your security because when you join that public wifi, the name of your computer is broadcast over the network. This means even if you have a password on your computer, you have given an attacker the right username to break.

Here is a good site that instructs you on how to change your computer name. Change it to something innocuous that won't be immediately tied to you.

CENTCOM Twitter and social media accounts hacked OR: The government has a Pinterest page?

If you haven't heard the news, The US Government Central Command (CENTCOM) recently had their Twitter and Youtube pages compromised by supporters of the terrorist organization ISIS.

Pretty scary stuff. But how much do you, the normal internet user need to worry? How much do you need to worry about the safety of your government?

Twitter isn't exactly the height of online security. CENTCOM wasn't actually hacked, just a Twitter account. Which happens pretty regularly as it turns out. Twitter isn't exactly the center of security on the internet.

Things like this happen quite often, and it's no fault of the companies running the accounts. It's a fault in the security of the social media sites themselves. Heck, even being unable to reach a website is low level hacking at best, and is mostly just a nuisance.

From XKCD

I myself am more worried the government will use this as an opportunity to push more legislation in the favor of more internet survelliance in the name of freedom, but that's my happy little paranoia.