At some point in the past, I began making new year’s resolutions for doing a bit of personal privacy and security maintenance on New Year’s Day or thereabouts. I would usually have a bit of downtime to finally get around to doing the things I’d been putting off all year. It’s become a fun habit that I wanted to share.

Changing Passwords

One of my first endeavors was to change all of my passwords on New Year’s Day. It’s great to change passwords more often, though, and this is made easier with the use of a password manager.  A password manager removes the need to remember an ever-growing list of constantly changing passwords. This allows you to use completely random passwords for everything, ensuring that the breach of one website won’t affect your account’s security on others. You should never re-use passwords between different websites or systems.

If you use key based authentication for SSH or cloud API access, this is a good time to rotate those credentials, also. Keys and passwords used in automation can stay in use much longer than is safe and should be hunted down and rotated.

Enable Multi-Factor Authentication

In later years, I started seeing the option to enable multi factor authentication, but again, I’d put it off until later. So, after you’ve changed your passwords and started using a password manager, your next step is to enable multi-factor authentication.

Multi-factor or two-factor authentication (MFA or 2FA) is authentication based on at least two factors, something you know, such as your password, and something you have, such as your phone, email, or an authenticator device. You’ve probably already seen this used in various places without even knowing about it. This is a crucial safeguard to help keep your accounts secure in the event of (Read more...)