Data Privacy Day is an annual international celebration to raise awareness and generate discussion about information privacy. Intel, Microsoft, Google, AT&T, LexisNexis and The Privacy Projects are sponsoring Data Privacy Day efforts, with assistance from Intuit and Oracle.
But the day is not just about big companies protecting their data, it’s also about you protecting your own data.
You are responsible for your own online activity. You may just be the reason that your privacy is breached. In looking at a recent data breach, “123456″, “12345″, “123456789″ and “password” were the most common passwords. Even Twitter banned these passwords, along with 366 other obvious passwords.
A list of 32 million passwords that a hacker recently stole from RockYou, a company that makes software for users of social networking sites, provided a treasure trove of information for privacy experts. About 20 percent of people picked from the same, relatively small pool of 5,000 passwords. Hackers could easily break into many accounts just by trying the most common passwords.
Security experts advise that a password should consist of letters, numbers and even punctuation symbols. They should be changed regularly and you should not use the same password for all your online services.
You are responsible for your kids. The Data Privacy Day 2010 website has some great resources for Teens, Young Adults, and Parents & Kids. Take a look at the FTC’s You Are Here to see some of the problems faced by kids online. Make sure to Visit the Security Plaza to learn about protecting their privacy (online and off). Make sure they have good passwords and understand the privacy implications.
