Prevent Cloud Hackers

Never heard of “Cloud Hackers?” You undoubtedly know the importance of backing-up photos from your smartphone and documents on your computer to cloud storage, just in case something happens to your devices. While it’s nice to know you have a copy of your digital files that can be retrieved from almost anywhere, it’s also important that you take steps to protect data that you store in the cloud from hackers who may attack or break into online storage centers. • Avoid automatic backups. Yes, having your devices automatically backed up means you don’t have to worry about it, but this also means every single photo, video, and file you create is sent to the cloud – and accessible by hackers. You may have several apps uploading photos, so you need to disable each and every one. Note that the built-in Camera app on iOS and Android can’t be disabled and every image is uploaded to the cloud. To delete them, you need to remove them directly from the online storage space. You can disable this feature for mobile devices, and upload on your own schedule. • Check files that are already backed up. Take some time to browse your cloud storage to make sure there aren’t sensitive items like bank statements or questionable photos that you wouldn’t want others to find. • Strengthen passwords. Create a 12-character password or longer for your cloud storage system, and change it a few times annually. Use a variety of capitalization, numbers, letters, and punctuation, and avoid using names, places, or actual words (or have passwordsgenerator.net make one for you).