Privacy Prompt 1: Track Your Accounts

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Privacy and security are closely related. You know that having strong passwords is important to good privacy. Click here to see why passwords are so important. This week's prompt is pretty simple:

Create a list of every high-risk website, account, or app with which you have an account that requires a password. It can be on paper, a Word doc, Excel, wherever. If you want to be super private, make a Word doc and password protect it. I have provided a simple Excel spreadsheet to start you out (which you can also password protect).

Why? For many reasons:

1. It's just a good idea to know all the sensitive accounts you have.
2. If you aren't using unique passwords, and one of your passwords is stolen, you must immediately change all the other passwords. This list will make that easier.
3. It is a best practice to rotate your passwords. Every year or so you should change your passwords. This list will help you keep track of what passwords to change.

What is a high-risk  account and why do they matter more?

• Lots of websites ask you to create an account, but some don't really matter if they get hacked. If someone steals my New York Times credentials I'm not too worried. In fact, I don't even use unique passwords for low-risk accounts, it's just easier.
• High-risk accounts, on the other hand, can cause a lot of damage if they get hacked. They include accounts related to:
  • Banking
  • Investments & Retirement
  • Tax prep
  • Work & School
  • Health
  • Email
  • Cloud storage
  • Social Media
  • Shopping
• High-risk accounts require a strong, unique password. We'll go into what that looks like next week.

That's it! Make the list. If you have a password manager that might be easy. If you think this would be too difficult, than you definitely should make the list!!!