Am I the only one?

Many people use their phones for paying for their purchases in shops & supermarkets & it makes me cringe. They don’t even have to take their payment cards out of their wallets to make contact-less payments.

Most of my friends think I’m daft for even thinking we might be taking security too much for granted. I am assured the level of security is top notch. I wonder what happens when a phone gets stolen? Could we remember our login details? Remember our account details? Or are we so reliant on technology that we would have difficulty recovering our data?

I am thought odd when I don’t want to store my bank card details on a parking app… but surely I’m not the only one?

Then there is the online dilemma…

People really do use password managers; they really do store their passwords online! Hmm… but where else could they save them? We are all encouraged to make our passwords long enough & complicated enough to be difficult to hack but we aren’t all training our brains to remember each one. I don’t have the answer to this one but maybe you have some ideas? You can let me know in the comments or send me a message.

What about our email accounts? We are totally reliant on the behemoths. The best we can do is trust that they hold on to our private conversations in some sort of encrypted form & ensure that we never lose access.

I used a business Gmail account to upload videos to YouTube many years ago, but the partnership dissolved. I stopped using the address but found there is no way of moving those videos to a different address. My only solution, so far, is to make sure I log in to the old address every 3 months so I don’t lose it.

Life is going to become ever more reliant on our online presence. The dilemma is not going to go away. Life will get ever more complicated.

I’m just going to have to take a deep breath & work with ‘what is’ & occasionally have people poke fun at my non-conformist idiosyncracies 🙂

So… I suggest you review all your online presence & the apps on your phone & tablet every three months. Make sure you are absolutely happy that you have the best security measures in place. Do the best you can with whatever is available to you right now.

Whichever online account provider you use just track down the security settings & follow their instructions.

How to secure your Gmail account:

Make your account more secure ~ https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/46526

Security check-up ~ https://myaccount.google.com/security-checkup/

There is also the Advanced Protection Program those at risk of targeted attacks – such as journalists, activists, business leaders, and political campaign teams. Here’s how to enable the Google Advanced Protection Program https://landing.google.com/advancedprotection/

There is a good chance that Google holds most of your information. If you use Gmail for email, Chrome for web browsing, & Androidon your mobile, you’re already using Google for most stuff.

What would happen if your laptop was stolen? What if you left your house or office & just closed the lid leaving your email accounts open? I know someone who’s house was burgled recently. Two laptops, an iPad & an iPhone were taken along with jewellery & bank cards. They were in a total panic about the vulnerability of their personal data but the items themselves were covered by insurance.

What could happen if someone got access to your Google account? That could include bank statements in Gmail, personal files in Drive, stored pictures in Google Photos, chat logs from Hangouts, and much more.

& all this has made me think of something else! What happens when someone dies? Make a will & make sure it includes access to your online presence!

I don’t have all the answers but I do hope I’ve shocked you out of complacency & made you think twice about your security.