Brian X. Chen, the lead consumer technology writer of The New York Times, writes in a recent article about ‘safer digital life‘ best practices what he refers as “tech commandments“. Because technology that we use in our daily life is always changing and we are also sharing our use data, personal information in social media site allowing third parties and bad actors to snoop our data, says Chen.

“Your digital identity, which comprises all your pictures, videos and audio, is going to fundamentally allow hackers to create a complete persona of you that looks exactly like you, without you being in the picture.”

Vijay Balasubramaniyan, the chief executive of Pindrop (source: The New York Times)

Brian recommends following five best tech use practices, what he calls as five tech commandments ‘in the hope that you will remember them as if they were gospel’.

• Thou Shalt Not Use Weak Passwords : Follow good password hygiene. One can have online password service like 1Password but traditional options like – to jot down passwords on a piece of paper that is stored in a safe place. Just make sure the passwords are long and complex, with some letters, numbers and special characters.
• Use Multifactor Authentication : No matter how strong you make a password, hackers can still get it if they breach a company’s servers containing your information. That’s why security experts recommend multifactor authentication, also known as two-step verification.
• Thou Shalt Not Overshare : Many of us rely on our smartphones for our everyday cameras. But our smartphones collect lots of data about us, and camera software can automatically make a note of our location when we snap a photo. This is more often a potential safety risk than a benefit.
• Thou Shalt Not Share Data About Friends : This is a lesson we have to learn again and again: It’s generally not a good idea to give away information about your friends when using websites and apps, especially with unknown brands.
• Remember to Stay Skeptical : All security experts agreed on one rule of thumb: Trust no one.

“Think about all the different ways in which you’re leaving biometric identity in your online world,” Mr. Balasubramaniyan told Mr Chen.