Guard Your Media: Tips for Maximizing Online Profile Security
Americans spend A LOT of time online. Digitally corresponding personally and professionally, shopping and even marketing services has become big business not only for corporations, but for hackers and scammers. It seems like you hear regularly about major brands’ twitter accounts being hacked: just last year, according to Mashable, E! Online and The Associated Press suffered attacks. There are, however, reasonable measures consumers and business owners can take to ensure their information and digital reputation is protected.
The best line of defense against compromised email and social media profiles is common sense: don’t share your login information with anyone that doesn’t absolutely need it. You should also be cognizant of the individuals you include on emails containing any security information. If you do have to grant access to outside parties for updates to your accounts, make sure you quickly change the information as soon as their prescribed task is complete. It is recommended that passwords are changed every three to six months and including a combination of letters numbers and symbols (that you can remember easier than &%90e!2#) to further protect your online profiles you should engage in the optional, but not highly publicized, “two-factor authentication.” This requires users working from unrecognized devices to enter not only the usual login credentials, but also a randomly generated security code created by the site at the time of the request that is then sent to the account linked to the profile.
Business owners with commerce-minded website components, especially those in the medical field, should invest in a shopping cart with a secure payment feature to protect customers’ contact and billing information. If your business frequently requires access to sensitive patient information, website hosting through a HIPAA compliant secure server line is important to remain in compliance with nationally mandated patient privacy regulations. While this list is by no means exhaustive, it’s a good foundation to establish safeguards against compromising the data of your business and your clients.
For more information on professional, secure website development or ways to protect your digital reputation, contact McCauley Marketing Services. For more online security tips connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.