Recently, the streaming service Roku announced that it had suffered a data breach in which personal information of 576,000 of its customers was compromised. This was the second data breach affecting Roku this year. However, the fault is not primarily with Roku as the attack was accomplished through credential stuffing which occurs when hackers use usernames and passwords obtained through other data breaches which are sold on the Dark Web, that part of the Internet where criminals buy and sell goods and services. Using the same username and password for multiple accounts is a recipe for disaster.
Last year, there were more than 1,800 reported data breaches and probably many more that were not reported affecting 422 million people. The question is not if you will become a victim of a data breach. The question is when.
So what can you do to protect yourself from these data breaches that will be occurring?
TIPS
You should also make sure that you have a unique password for each of your online accounts so that if one of your passwords is compromised in a data breach, all of your accounts will not be in danger. If your information is compromised in a data breach, you should immediately change the password for that account. You also should use dual factor authentication whenever offered by any site you use to protect your security even if your password is compromised. Here is a link to how you can set up dual factor authentication on your Roku account.
One way to get strong unique passwords for all of your accounts is to use a password manager. If you are interested in using a password manager, here is a link to an article from PC magazine that compares many of the legitimate password managers available to you. https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-password-managers
If you do decide to use a password manager, you should remember not to use your password manager master password for any of your other accounts. You also should use dual factor authentication so that even if someone were to gain access to your password manager master password, your password manager account could not be accessed.
However, if you would like to use the helping hand you find at the end of your own arm and generate unique, complex passwords for each of your accounts that are easy to remember, here is a strategy that is very effective. You can start with a strong base password constructed from a phrase, such as IDon’tLikePasswords that has capital letters, small letters and a symbol, add a few symbols at the end so it may read IDon’tLikePasswords!!! and then adapt it with a few letters for each particular account you have so that you will have a secure and easy to remember password for each of your online accounts. Thus, your Amazon password could be IDon’tLikePasswords!!!AMA
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#rokudatabreach #dual factor authentication