When it comes to your online identity, what are you afraid of?

Are you afraid of having all of your personal information online and available for all of the world to see?

Are you afraid for your children and what they are exposed to on the internet?

Maybe your fear is losing all of your memories that you have stored digitally.

With so much of our lives recorded with our computers, tablets, and smartphones, having fears about the security of the digital lives of our families is both relevant and valid.  What we should be concerned with is how to protect ourselves.

The first step is to learn.  To fight an enemy we must first learn about our enemy.  Do  you know how the Kolab Worm lures its victims?  Have you heard of Droid Demons or Koobface?

Head over to TrendMicro and take the Halloween quiz (http://www.trendmicrofamilysecurity.com/t/quiz.html).

Once you know the dangers,  we have to take steps to protect ourselves.

Manage your online accounts with secure passwords.  This means passwords that contain letters, numbers, and symbols when possible.  So if your password is something like password1..you have an issue….if you must use that, at least change it to something like Pa$$W0rd1.  The point being is to mix in those symbols, numbers, and Capital Letters!  The next thing you need to do with passwords is get out of the habit of using only one or two passwords for all of your accounts.  That is just a BAD idea.  If one account becomes compromised….guess what…your entire digital world has just become compromised.  You need to use different passwords for different sites.  Yes that is a pain, but that pain is nothing to what you will feel if you lose control of your digital life.  Multiple passwords…do it.

Know and USE the priavcy setting of all your accounts.  If you don’t want just anyone to have access to your Facebook or Twitter feed, lock it down!  Virtually every single service and app that you use as a part of your digital life has adjustable privacy settings.  Find them and adjust until you are comfortable with what is exposed to others.

Back up your data.  Let me say that again.  BACK UP YOUR DATA!  In this day and age, there is simply no reason to not back up your data.  There are services available now like Trend Micro SafeSync, which back your data up online automatically.  All you have to do is set up the service.  And while we are at it, remember that backing up does not just mean your computer…we are talking about all of your digital devices.  So by all means back up that computer, but don’t forget your phone and tablet!

Install security software….on every digital device you own.  This means that we should be protecting our computers, smartphones, and tablets with a software solution that actively protects us from threats.  It is critical that we protect ALL devices…given the connectivity of our devices today, we have to remember that a breach on one device can become a breach on all of our devices.  So protect everything.

By following these four steps we can face and defeat our digital fears.

Keep up with all of the Digital Joneses families here.

Disclosure: The Digital Joneses Study will include gadgets for myself and my family. Although we have been provided with these products to help evaluate the challenges within the study, the opinions, thoughts and statements expressed on this blog remains our own and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Trend Micro.