How insecure are you really? 3 ways to dramatically increase the security of your online presence

How secure are your Facebook, Twitter & Gmail logons? Probably not as secure as you think. If you’re using any of these services over a public network, chances are your logon details are not encrypted.

This means if you’re using a shared, public or unencrypted wireless connection, anyone with a free Firefox plugin (Firesheep) can get your logon details.

Its not just public networks that are a problem. Even if you’re plugged directly into a network cable, even a low level network administrator will be able to intercept your logon info.

HTTPS = a secure connection

To prevent this from happening, you need to make sure you’re using these services in HTTPS mode which means data transmitted between you and the web server is encrypted and can’t be easily intercepted. Last week Twitter announced a new settings option to allow you to turn on HTTPS permanently and a few weeks ago, Facebook enabled the option (most likely as a result of Mark Zuckerberg’s personal account getting hacked). Gmail has had the setting for a long time but it is not turned on by default.

We strongly urge you to spend the next five minutes reading the articles below and enabling these settings on your accounts. With increased reliance on these platforms in a business environment, falling victim to a hacked account could cause serious problems for your business.

HTTPS settings in Twitter:
http://blog.twitter.com/2011/03/making-twitter-more-secure-https.html

“How I hacked your Facebook account” – securing your Facebook & Gmail account using HTTPS:
http://www.shoemoney.com/2011/03/08/how-i-hacked-your-facebook-account/