“You shall not pass!”
Everyday I am amazed at the lack of password protection on the computers that come through our service department. I know I know — you have a million and one passwords. Well, I am going to advise that you incorporate a million and two or possibly three passwords to your more than capable brain!
I have often had clients tell me that they have no need for a password. They insist that their computer never leaves their side. This is not a good enough reason to NOT have a password. I always retort with this question: “Do you have any personal information or data on your computer that you wouldn’t want just anyone to see? You know, if heaven forbid your laptop, iPhone or other device were stolen.” The answer almost always is yes.
The basic first step to protecting your data is disabling automatic login (Apple>System Preferences>Accounts) and at the very least creating a simple password.
Now if you want to spice things up a little you can pick the word that you want to use for your password and substitute a couple of characters with a capital, number and special character.
Example plain password: goldshire
Slightly more secure version: g0!dSh1r3
Truth be told, to be uber safe you can create a completely random mix of alpha-numeric and special characters.
Next week, we are going to have a little discussion about wireless security at home. We’ll talk about a few of the more popular options and how you go about rolling them out on the network.
Paul Fletcher, Service Manager
paul@macoutpost.com
