As a small business owner it is especially important to protect your personal online identity, your online life, online business and social media accounts . One of the best ways to do this is to use strong passwords for all your online accounts and to keep them in a safe place. If your notebook or netbook is stolen, you want to ensure the thief doesn’t have access online accounts.

5 Ways to create effective passwords

1. Don’t use real words – don’t use any word that can be found in a dictionary.
2. Don’t use personal information – it’s easily guessed and if hacked you’ve given them more information about you.
3. Mix Character Types – use upper and lower case, numbers and special characters. Don’t replace letters with numbers as in p@ssw0rd ..
4. Use a Password Generation Tool – this is a good choice to create a random character password. Perfect Password creates secure passwords up to 64 characters in length. Cut and paste 8 character passwords from the longer passwords created by this site.

Creating a unique, security password for each of your accounts creates another problem. How to remember them all.

Using your browser to manage your passwords is insecure without using a master password. Even with a master password, your browser isn’t the best choice.

A password management tool will store your password information securily. LastPass is an effective password management tool that is convenient and easy to use.

LastPass is a browser addon that is supported by Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer and most browsers.

• Your account and password data is encrypted and only your master password can unlock it.
• LastPass will generate secure passwords for you.
• You can set up multiple profiles that will automate filling of web forms for you.
• It is easy to use, free, safe, and supports multi-platform (Mac, Windows, Linux).
• You can sync account and password information between your computer.
• LastPass is the 46th item in the PCWorld’s 100 best products of 2009, has also been applauded by Lifehacker, ZDNet, PC Mag editors, the Economist, CNET and other reputed sites.

Taking the time to install a password management tool such as LastPass can go a long way to protect your online identity.

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