I’ve been listening to my college students fears recently in light of, well, everything. Although some have been surprised to learn about some recent events, most are worried or even frightened. And in addition to everything else one might be concerned about, it seems entirely possible to me that there could be a major breach of financial information in the future, given the actions of DOGE at the Treasury and Education Departments.
Although college professors don’t have all the answers (who does?), we do care deeply about our students. So here’s the advice I gave my students about things they can do to protect their privacy and personal information.
- Multifactor authentication. Yes, it’s a pain to have to enter a code from your cell phone everytime you open your online banking account, but this is what protects you from any leak of your password or other information. Turn multifactor authentication on, for everything, right now.
- Use strong passwords. Use random passwords of the maximum length allowed. Don’t repeat passwords between accounts. Change passwords regularly. A paid service like 1password can help you make sure you are creating great passwords and will store them so you don’t have to remember them. You’ll still need multifactor authentication, though!
- Credit Freeze. There are three large, private companies that basically pay other companies for financial information about you (credit cards, loans, mortgage, etc) and turn it into a credit score. When you apply for a new credit card, loan, rental housing, etc. people can ask these companies for that score, as an indicator of how likely you are to pay off a new loan. A “credit freeze” prevents anyone from requesting such a report, which means that no one will issue you (or anyone pretending to be you) a credit card or anything else.
Keep in mind that a credit freeze means you can’t apply spur-of-the-moment for a store credit card! But with some planning, you’ll be far safer.
Credit freezes are free, and you can turn them off for free. (I habitually have them on, especially when traveling abroad.) You’ll need to create an account with each of the three companies below, and turn on a credit freeze at each separately. Again, this is free (although they will try to sell you things). You can also request a copy of your credit report for free, to make sure everything on it is something you recognize.
Equifax
Experian
TransUnion
4. Use Signal, and get your friends to use Signal too. Signal is an encrypted text messaging app that looks a lot like messenger or Whatsapp, but is owned by a non-profit (no billionaires!) and is end-to-end encrypted. This doesn’t solve all privacy problems, but it makes your communciations a lot more private.
Hopefully this will get you started on protecting your identity and personal information on the web. Stay safe out there!