3 Ways to Protect Your Digital Life in 2020

Having been raised by a Southern Grandmother, a New Year doesn’t pass without my eating black-eyed peas and good ham with a Coke. This year, I shared my southern feast with co-workers here at Elite Storage, a leader in Lafayette, CO storage providers. Whilst we nibbled at our good luck bringing feast, we discussed ways that we could ensure that our digital lives were shored up and strengthened at the beginning of a new decade. 

Create an ICE contact on your phone 

If you’ve yet to do so, create a contact or contact group name ICE (in case of emergency). Add names of those you want contacted if you are in an accident so that emergency personnel can quickly contact people if you are unable to do so. Put notes in the contact with allergies, medical conditions, medications, as well as the same information for your family members. This can save your life if you are unable to communicate the information yourself. 

Passwords, passwords, and passwords, oh my! 

Did you know that the average person has approximately 200 unique online accounts with passwords? Did you also know that having even variations of one password puts your date at risk at each site? Using a password app that gives you unique (and nearly impossible to remember) passwords to your sites and allows you to sign into all accounts with a master password is a great way to solve that problem. Others use Google Chrome to suggest and save complicated passwords in your browser sessions (phone and computer). Whichever way you go, take time to secure your passwords asap. 

Back to a 4-digit date 

For those old enough to remember the hype around Y2K, using a four-digit date took on a new level of importance. There was significant concern about what would be the outcome when the year flipped from 1999 to 2000, centered around how dates were written as the last two digits of the year. Security experts recommend that for this entire year, everyone write the date completely, rather than abbreviating. You can put yourself at risk for fraud by others changing the date to reflect another year, such as 3/15/20 to 3/15/2001, 3/15/2007, or 3/15/2019.  

Is there something that we missed? Swing by Elite Storage units in Lafayette, CO and let us know.