How to Protect Your Data Online

When it comes to putting any personal or important information out on the internet, beware.  You have to assume that it could fall into the wrong hands. You can protect our computer with Comodo Internet Security and you can secure you connections with digital certificates, but once your data is out on the internet you have surrendered control of it.In recent months we have learned that Google does not believe you have “a reasonable expectation of privacy” when using Gmail, that the NSA has broken into the networks of Google and Yahoo and that healthcare.gov site went live without ever doing an end to end security test. Although these three examples are very different, they each illustrate that when you provide data to a web site you may not know what you are getting into.

The front end of healthcare.gov is secure by SSL, a Comodo certificate in fact. That means you have protection from others listening in. However, once the site has your information there is no telling what they will do with or how protected it will be.Given Google’s position on privacy and the invasive activities of the NSA, you should be cautious how you use popular web based email systems. Certainly, I t would be better to use email that you can secure with a digital certificate for business and financial communication.What else should you consider?VPN AccessUse a virtual private network (VPN) to communicate between your office and home.When you find yourself using more and more internet in public wireless connections, the best way to get individual internet security is by using a VPN service. Virtual private networks create an encrypted tunnel between your computer and the servers you interact with, making it hard for others to see what’s going inside. Even if found, encrypted files are not easy to decipher and thus your data is safe at all times.Comodo Unite can be downloaded free. It allows users to easily create a secure and encrypted virtual private network  between groups of computers. Once connected, all computers can securely share any files they choose.Cloud Data

Never leave personal or important data unencrypted on cloud storage sites.

One of the leading encrypted cloud storage provider is Comodo’s ccloud.com, which allows you to get started for free with 5GB of storage. Your data is encrypted before it leaves your computer using the industry’s strongest algorithms and then transferred to our servers over an encrypted SSL connection. Furthermore, stringent password protection ensures your data cannot be viewed, modified or retrieved by anybody but authorized personnel.

Two Factor Authentication

When providing access to a site, a user name and password are just not enough.

If you bank online you’ve seen Two Factor Authentication.  With my bank’s site, if I try to sign into their site from a different computer from the one I usually use they will send an authentication code to the phone number or email address I have on file. I then need to enter the code to access my site.

Comodo has similar Two Factor Authentication systems, but Comodo prides itself on providing flexible, customized solutions for our customers.