It’s coming to Christmas, and 2012 is just around the corner. It’s time to change your passwords for your most valuable online real estate.

You might think it will never happen to you, but you really don’t want to risk it. Getting hacked and losing access to your Gmail, Facebook or Twitter accounts not only affects you, but exposes the people you care about to phishing and other malicious attacks. The pain and time wasted to get access to those accounts is arduous and filled with secret questions that you may not even remember the answer to. You may have keyed in these passwords on an unsecured computer that you don’t remember, or used the same password for your Gmail and some random site (which I’m sure most of you do).  Your accounts may be at risk. Do yourself a favour, change your passwords to your most frequently used sites today.

[image from xkcd.com/936/]

Some good password habits I keep to:

• Don’t use some jumbled string which you can’t remember. A simple sentence with appropriate punctuation which you will remember works as well.
• Have separate secure passwords for important sites, don’t reuse these passwords for untrusted sites.
• For sites that ask you for your Google credentials, use OAuth. Or setup an application specific password. Never give them your password in clear.
• Change your important passwords at least once a year (hence the timely reminder from me).

From us here at Ridz.SG, have an enjoyable, and safe, 2012.

 Ivan Gn
Currently involved in the education scene, Ivan has been involved with creating things on the internet since 2004. He was lucky to have completed his education overseas where he saw how different the world was compared to his home city. His current interests include how new technology may be adapted for use in the education sector, social media influence on society and how incentives drive behaviour.