Five ways to ensure your data online is safe

The recent leak of nude images of over 100 well-known celebrities online has rocked not only Hollywood but also the Silicon Valley. Online service providers are doing their best to ensure security of their cloud offering is improved. But there are steps you can take to improve the security of your data on the cloud. While there is no foolproof way to protect your digital data, and the threat of hacking being very real, the following steps will ensure that at you provide the best possible protection to your digital data.

Strong passwords
This is the easiest thing to do yet most people fail to do it. Passwords created by most users are fairly basic — names of family members or other personal information, and in some cases, extremely generic passwords (password123, admin, etc). Generic passwords don't take much effort to crack and hackers can cause serious damage if your password is compromised. The simplest way to create a strong and effective password is by using a site like strongpasswordgenerator.com.

Separate passwords for separate services
Most people choose to keep the same password for all their web services. This leaves all their accounts vulnerable as a single breach in security can cause them to lose all their data to hackers. Even if you chose to have an easy-to-remember password make sure your cloud service and email password is not the same as the password you use to access any random web service.

Guard against phishing
The most effective way the hackers gain access to people's accounts is through phishing sites. Do not, under any circumstance, click on any link that seems remotely suspicious.

Two step authentication
Most important web services like Google, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook offer a two-step authentication process. This requires any log-ins to your online accounts from new computers to enter an additional code that might be, for example, texted to your mobile. Ensure that you set up a two-step authentication process on all services they offer.

Encrypt all your data
If you have any sensitive data to store on the cloud service, do ensure that you encrypt it before uploading it. This will make it harder for the date to get hacked.