Passwords & Internet Addresses Journal For Dummies

Chapter 1

Safeguarding Your Identity

In This Chapter

• Evaluating your private information and where it is online
• Keeping your private information out of the wrong hands
• Taking swift and effective action if your identity is stolen

It's easier and easier to share information about yourself online these days, whether you're active in social media or online shopping. Overall, this book helps you create and guard your passwords for online activity, but this chapter specifically helps you understand the kind of information that you're asked to share online and the potential ramifications that can occur if that information falls into the wrong hands. Consider this chapter the explanation of why you should create strong and safe passwords — you want to keep personal information like this away from others.

Assessing Your Information

To get started, take stock of what kind of information you have out there on the Internet and what kind of risk it poses if it's stolen. Unless you're off the grid in the Montana woods or working with extremely secure biometric sensors on a top-secret government project, you deal with passwords every day.

Where do I use passwords?

The easy answer is: everywhere. It seems like everything online requires a password of some sort. The questions you should ask are: ...