Introduction
My parents used to tell me of the days gone by when all that was needed to confirm ones identity was a simple signature on a calling card, or a quick handwriting stroke check on a specimen signature card at the bank. They told me that when in serious doubt about the validity of a transaction, banks or stores would call the people in question up at home or at the office to make sure the transaction was valid. Simple yes or no. Simple identity check. Those days are gone now.
Main body
As we have come to rely more and more on electronic technology to simplify our lives and manage our affairs, we have become more and more beholden to the automated and risk riddled method of identity checks. Passwords are now keywords that must be remembered like the Lord’s Prayer if one is to have any access to his internet based life needs. But the problem is that the internet is like the Wild West, it is an unknown frontier plagued with danger and theft. Dangers that cannot be prevented by simple username and password access codes anymore.
The problem with internet security is that it relies on a person’s most fallible asset, the human mind. In order to gain access to our online records, we are expected to create usernames and passwords that are unique and not easily identifiable. It sounds easy enough. Afterall, all we have to do is create a series of words or numbers that we can easily remember. Word association is often used along with a mix of personal information and other key life events of the person. That should be hard enough to crack right? It should be but it is not. The reason it is not hard to crack is because people tend to choose information about themselves which is usually common knowledge among his peers of family members. Dates like birthdays and anniversaries, a home address, even a telephone number are the worst possible password combinations that could be used, and yet a large number of the population still uses these codes. So it is no wonder that identity theft and computer hacking seems as easy as learning your ABC’s.
Add to this the fact that people tend to be creatures of habit. He does not like having to remember too much information with which to access his accounts. So the tendency is for that person to use the same username and password for a majority of his accounts. Unless his office assigns him a random access code for the office computer, you can bet that even the garage door opener will be using the same security code as the burglar alarm in the house.
These are just some of the ways and means by which a person compromises his own internet based security and even real time security systems. People who know your habits and interests, such as a spouse, a child, a sibling, even your parents, would easily be able to pose are you just because they know who you are and what your possible access codes could be. They can hack into your system in about 10 minutes.
That is why gadgets like the Password Key and Password Managers were invented for people who need to access numerous internet accounts. The idea being that one simply has to store all the passwords in the password manager, or go with the randomly selected password of the password key in order to access the accounts. Passwords that used to be too many to remember have all been boiled down to one password, in order to access the right password for your account. Does that even make sense?
Anyway, the need for passwords will only become more and more important as time passes and we migrate more and more of our daily activities to the internet. Technology is trying to keep up with the need for more and more sophisticated password protection and secured socket layer devices for the end users but all of these will be rendered useless unless the person does his part in protecting his vital access information.
As a person who relies heavily on the internet for my daily activities and tasks, I have come to the realization that the only way to actually protect my information was not through the use of firewalls or complicated access codes. One way I can protect myself from identity fraud is by insuring that people know as little about my private life as possible. The less they know about me, the less likely they will be to be able to access my passwords and other accounts. Also, as difficult as it may be, it has become imperative that I change my password on a regular basis for all the accounts that I use. Most importantly, I need to make sure that each account that I use will indeed have a unique username and password that I can remember but others cannot guess.
Even as technology speeds forth with various identity protecting ideas and gadgets, the reality is that the real responsibility for account security depends upon the user himself. Therefore, it is up to us to come up with our own unique ideas and passwords which cannot easily be hacked into by the patient hacker on our trail.
Do I have any idea about what the best way to protect my accounts is? I think so. I simply won’t tell anybody about my personal internet life. Anything relating to finances and the like are off limits topics for me even today. After all, the less they know about me, the less likely people will want to hack into my account.
Conclusion
As for the random hacker, I will just have to make sure that I use such difficult and tongue twisting codes for my accounts that even his hacker program would choke on it if it tried to decipher the codes.
References
Johnson, Steve. The link that binds us: Forgot your password? Web.
Goldwasser, Joan. Passwords + pictures = security? Web.