Home security in this day and age is not just limited to door and window locks and a well-lighted property perimeter. In the information age of today one of the most vulnerable aspects of any home is its electronic data – which is stored on computer hard drives or within the mind of the homeowner.
Sensitive Data for the Taking
If you use accounting or tax filing software like many homeowners, for example, then confidential data – including bank account information and social security numbers – may be easy to steal from you by a burglar, a computer hacker tapping into your wireless network, or someone who works on your computer or does work inside your home and gains surreptitious access to your computer. Many hackers, for example, just drive up and down the street using a laptop until they find a home network that is not secured with a firewall. Then they can park outside your home while they steal virtually everything you or your kids have on your computers. Next they use that information to hack into such things as banks accounts, credit card accounts, or online payment systems like PayPal. By the time you realize you’ve been victimized they are long gone.
The Era of 12-Digit Passwords
A recent study by information technology companies also revealed that passwords that are shorter than 12 letters or digits and do not include a combination of letters, numerical digits, or keyboard symbols are no longer adequate to protect you.
Shorter strings of numbers are a carry-over from the days of combinations on vaults or padlocks, but these days computer programs can crack those codes within a matter of hours, if not minutes. University researchers and computer companies who ran security tests for this recent study found that it is, however, nearly impossible for those same programs or robotic software packages to decode and decipher passwords that are at least 12 or 13 digits, letters, and symbols long. In fact, they estimate that most of the cyber crime software in use today would need decades to figure out that kind of password – and for that reason these computer security experts all recommend changing your passwords to ones of that length.
Students of high-tech computer science at the prestigious Carnegie Mellon University conducted experiments with various 12-13 character password combinations, and their research indicated that rather than thinking of passwords the way we have traditionally done – as a combination of numbers or letters – we should start thinking in terms of password phrases.
Use phrases, for example, like “5 Pies in 3 boxes” or “73 days of autumn” that mix numbers and letters of the alphabet and add up to 12 or 13 characters or digits long. If possible, throw in some quirky symbols. (Think #$%&! for example.) That gets more complicated, but if you include one or two of those it also makes your passwords exponentially harder to crack.
The Security of Estate Assets
Also related to this kind of cyber security is the emergence of new applications in the field of computer forensics. There are computer professionals who offer their forensic services to help the executors of estates and others uncover assets that may be hidden away in an electronic format that is password protected.
Many people die and leave behind bank accounts, stock market portfolios, and even entire businesses that are all Internet based – but they fail to leave clear instructions in their estate documents or Last Will and Testament to help their survivors gain access to these valuables. It is easy to make that mistake when doing basic estate planning, because we are so accustomed now to doing business online but not sharing our log-in information with anyone.
So if you have not taken that into account it is a good idea to do so. One way is to type up a list of all your current online assets, along with the log-in names or user names and passwords to access those websites and accounts. Leave the list in a safe, confidential place such as your bank’s safety deposit box or include it as an addendum to your Last Will and Testament that is safely stored away at an attorney’s office or in a bank.
Keep in mind that your automobiles may have computer codes also. Most cars manufactured after 1996, for example, are protected by anti-theft devices that use a special security code. If you disconnect your car battery, for instance, you may not be able to restart the car radio or other devices without first entering that code. So keep a copy of it in a safe place where you can access it easily in case that happens. Don’t leave it inside the owner’s manual in the car, though, because car thieves can find it to disable the car’s own security systems.