Unique and extreme ways to protect yourself from hacks

Although this level of security is not always necessary, the possibility of credit card theft, identity theft or piracy of your credit card is on the rise. And people like Weinstein are finding creative ways to protect their pbadwords and devices.

Facebook's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, famously covers his laptop's webcam with a sticker, an increasingly common practice, and most people now know that they should not use the same word of pbades for all their accounts. Some security experts are take personal protection even further.

Weinstein's safety practices are far from rare. Wendy Nather, director of information security consulting at Duo Security, has a clever trick to thwart hackers.

"I use another credit card to automate [bill] payments online I do not do it for shopping on the street, "said Nather.

The father keeps things separate so that if she a regular credit card is broken, she does not have to change cards for each of her automated payments. This also minimizes the potential damage that a hacker can cause because it is not related to any important online account.

Others focus on areas of their lives such as using different physical computers for work and personal use, or create separate digital media accounts for work, purchases and banking.

Nather said that she even knew people who would only perform certain paper tasks and keep them in a safe.

Kevin Kosh, a CHEN PR partner who represents tech companies, uses a Google voice number – not his cell phone number – to receive two-factor authentication text. Two-factor authentication requires the use of a one-time code to access accounts, in addition to a pbadword.

According to its logic, if you change your SIM card, for example when you buy a new phone or change provider, there is no connection with your confidential information.

Nather and Weinstein are also great advocates of keep the mobile software up-to-date for bug fixes and security patches.

Weinstein said he knew some people who were completely eliminating email because of the high risk of phishing and malware.

Although this is not a reasonable solution for most people, he said that home routers are an area in which people could take a more cautious approach.

"Most people get them through their ISP and do not necessarily prioritize security," Weinstein said. "Consider buying a home router as you would any other technology that is important to you.It is not enough to give you wireless access.Security must be part of the same. equation."

These routers are easily hacked and can provide access to sensitive information because most people feel safe when they use computers on a protected network.

Weinstein, however, cautioned against extreme security precautions, such as the use of personal servers for email.

"That's what people do to be safe and then it ends up turning against us," he said. "Unless you have a state-of-the-art infrastructure and a 24/7 operations center, you can not compare the level of security to something else." as trivial as Gmail. "

Nather agrees, noting "if you are paranoid enough, you will never be able to prove to yourself that you are safe."

She said that there are some things that should be done right off the bat, such as 2-factor authentication and loading pbadwords into a pbadword manager. But "unless you know that you are at high risk of being targeted, such as a senior government official or executive, you probably will not be."