The best way to protect your sensitive data is to encrypt it, and we love free, open source TrueCrypt for that task. For the utmost in security, you can not only encrypt your files but hide them in a hidden volume within another encrypted volume.
If you’re a customer of Telstra’s GameArena or Games Shop site, you won’t be able to log in using your existing password today. Customer data for 35,000 users of the service was stolen in a hacking attack, so Telstra has reset the passwords as a precaution.
Apple won’t approve iOS anti-virus apps, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t security issues for the platform that can be addressed. BitDefender’s Clueful analyses the impact of other apps you have installed on your iPhone or apps you’re considering installing, including what data they share, whether they use excessive battery life and how they store data.
There are plenty of stupid things you can do on Facebook, but you perhaps wouldn’t expect being too private to be one of them. Think again. There are actually real downsides to locking down your Facebook profile. It can hurt you in a job search and affect the quality of the search results for your name. Here’s why.
While most of us were hurrying to turn off Twitter’s new email digests, Twitter announced it would begin suggesting new people and brands to follow based on your Twitter activity. The trouble is, by “activity” it means who you follow, who follows you and even where you go on the web.
iOS: Keeping track of the credit cards, IDs and other stuff in your wallet is important in case your wallet ever gets lost. Popular password manager LastPass now offers a free app to backup and sync all that important personal information.
If you Google yourself occasionally, you’re probably well aware that your Twitter account is placed pretty high on Google’s search rankings. Because of that it’s usually best to make sure you’re not doing anything too embarrassing. If you did release a bad tweet, the Twitter support page has put together a guide for getting those tweets out of Google’s search.
Raise your hand if you’ve shared a username and password with someone over IM? Ever share a document with your SSN or other extremely sensitive information without protecting it? How about if you’ve sent, erm… scandalous pics to your significant other? Thanks to the internet, we share more than ever, and so quickly and easily, that we do it without a second thought. That’s great, but it may be time you learn a little about how to do that sharing in a more secure fashion.
Earlier generations of Windows have offered parental controls to track younger users, but much of the emphasis has been on filtering out inappropriate content, which is always a precarious business. Windows 8 will take a different approach, sending a weekly email report to parents telling them what their kids have been up to.
Half the argument for using cloud-based solutions like Google Apps to provide email is letting someone take care of your infrastructure and backup, but in larger business environments where stricter document retention policies apply and lawsuits could lurk around the corner the standard system isn’t quite up to the task. If that’s the situation you find yourself in, Google Apps Vault might be the answer.
