Remember Password - Never Click This Prompt

By Arthur Moses Opio

Dear staff and students

As you navigate through the Internet using your various browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Opera etc whatever your choice is, you’re often given an enticing option - one that makes life easy: Would you like us to save your password? As much as this sounds good, you always have to ask yourself, Who owns my data? Who will have access to my password?

"Remember Password" is a tool developed by browser architects to make life easy, it takes away the stress from remembering a password for every account. However we need to be very security conscious just like the way we keep our PIN codes for ATM intact in our brains. There have been very many security breaches in regards to this and we need to keep reminding ourselves about safe computing habits.

It is so easy for us to forget to log out of our computers or other PDAs. Hackers are people who know us or people we don't know and they can pounce on any chance to take advantage of your private or work data. Right now browsers enable us to sync with our smartphones or PDAs, each time you go to research something using your phone on a particular browser you keep using, you will always find that they are relaying the latest information you accessed. You either have to turn of the sync feature or be very careful with the way you handle your accounts.

Brian Barret, a security writer said this "The real concern is that while these browser-based password managers make life more convenient, they may offer a false sense of security."

To those who use the internet for internet banking or any other online business this also comes as a reminder not to Click "Remember Password" Those with social media accounts, we continue to see a high level of identity theft and pseudo accounts created to fleece people with phishing scams.

For your email accounts or other platforms that enable the use of a second option (Two Factor Authentication) to log in like a code sent to your phone or another email please activate it because it will prompt you just in case there is any suspicious engagements of access to your personal accounts.

DICTS encourages you to follow these guidelines while surfing the internet

1. Never save passwords or sync browser data on other people’s computers.
2. Try to use different passwords for each site—at least for banking and other sensitive accounts.
3. Password-protect your Windows account.
4. Create separate Windows accounts for each user, or at least for those you don’t fully trust.
5. For extended family or friends, utilize the Guest Windows account.
6. Use a good antivirus program and keep it updated.
7. Think about fully encrypting laptops, ipads, mobile devices and other smart devices.

For further reading click this link http://answers.mak.ac.ug/security/web-browser-security

To reach us for any support please send us mail using helpme@dicts.mak.ac.ug or log a ticket using https://support.mak.ac.ug