You secure your home. You secure your car. Do you secure your data? In today’s increasingly tech-savvy society, digital security should be a concern for anyone with information to protect. Whether it’s financial statements, work files or just family photos, firewalls and secure passwords can help protect your data from unauthorized and potentially harmful access.

Firewalls
A firewall is the first line of defense for any computer system connected to the internet. It can be hardware- or software-based, or a combination of both. If you think of your computer system as an office building, the firewall would be the lobby guard that checks IDs. Approved visitors are allowed access to the building while unwanted guests — in the form of hackers, viruses and other potentially harmful entities — are identified and turned away before they can cause trouble.

Secure Passwords
Passwords are a key part of digital security. Simple passwords like your birthday or the name of your favorite pet might be easy to remember, but they’re also easy for others to figure out. To be truly secure, a password should be as complicated as possible while still being reasonable enough for you to remember it. The best passwords are made up of a combination of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols. One way of generating passwords, commonly called the “Hackzor Method” is to substitute numbers and characters for upper and lowercase letters. For example, “Password1” would become “P@$$W0Rd1.” Though this is not the most secure method it offers a more secure solution.

No system is 100 percent secure but using a firewall and secure passwords — along with a bit of common sense — can greatly reduce the chance of unauthorized and potentially harmful access to your information.

Contact your qualified Absolut IT technician to learn more about how we can help protect your data.

Digital Security: Firewalls and Passwords
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