Keep Your Personal Information Safe This Year

The start of a new year always brings with it an air of optimism and it is traditionally a time when people make resolutions to do something that will improve their life. Most people will choose something like eating less junk food, or going to the gym more - it is fair to say though, not many will choose to take better care of their personal information that is held digitally or their IT network security - but maybe it is something we should all try a little bit harder with.

Everyone uses the Internet on a daily basis, but how careful are we and how much attention do we really pay to the sites we are visiting. When submitting personal information do you check all of the small print, do you know where it will end up being stored and who will be able to access or share it? This type of information is valuable to identity thieves, so be a little more conservative with where yours goes and this can make for a very useful resolution!

If you haven't password protected your smart phone, laptop or PC then this should be your next step. Phones especially hold the keys to a lot of personal information these days, emails, auto logins for sites and contact details of friends and colleagues can be lost and fall into the wrong hands either if a device is stolen or just left somewhere. It may be a slight inconvenience but it will make you feel a lot better if you do happen to lose your phone.

It can be easy to set passwords for the devices you use every day like your phone and laptop but remembering to set a password for your own wireless network for example, can be a little harder to remember. If you use a wireless network at home, or in the office make sure it is secure by implementing a WEP or WPA encrypted password. There are obvious security risks in letting anyone use your wireless network to transmit and receive data, so take your resolution to the next level and shut the door on unauthorised users.

As far as resolutions go it is certainly very left-field and not typical. Your friends may find it funny, your partner may rather you promise to do the washing up every night but they won't be as quick to judge if you explain why you have chosen to make this choice. Make this the year you start taking care of your personal data online and rest a little easier knowing that you have done everything you can to fight off online fraudsters.