security & privacy

Nick Peers explains how to lock down your identity and data online

© VERTIGO3D/ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES PLUS

THESE DAYS your privacy and security have never been under greater threat, particularly when venturing online. Whether you’re worried about malicious individuals, gangs of hackers, or even your own government, there’s never been a better time to take the steps necessary to lock down your data and modify your online behavior to protect yourself and your loved ones from the less salubrious side of the internet.

We won’t go over old ground in this feature, we hope you’ve taken our previous advice and have strong security software in place on your computer, and are already protecting your online accounts with strong, randomly generated passwords. What we will do is help you take the next steps to tighten things further.

You’ll gain practical advice on strengthening network security and employing VPNs to not only secure your online traffic but allow you to dial into your home network securely when on the road. You’ll discover how to generate disposable email addresses to protect your actual address from future data breaches, plus we’ll show you how to browse more safely, encrypt data for more secure cloud storage, and tighten email and messaging security. It’s all here, so turn the page and start taking back control.

LET’S START BY LOCKING down your online accounts. You should already be using some form of password manager to generate and store strong passwords—at least 12 characters in length combining alphanumeric characters and symbols. But if you’re truly looking to lock down your online accounts, there’s more to do.

First, make sure you only store minimal personal information in your online account—if possible, no more than email and password. It may be fiddly having to input your card details each time you check out, but this slight inconvenience far outweighs having all your personal data stolen through a data breach.

In fact, you can go one step further. While it’s almost certain your email address has already been exposed by a password breach somewhere down the line (don’t believe us? Visit https:// haveibeenpwned.com/and don’t panic if or when your email address is flagged up), you can minimize its future exposure by switching to disposable email addresses. These special email addresses are designed to be used specifically for online accounts (see the box for details on how they work).

While you can manually create and use aliases via an email relay’s own online portal, look to see if your password manager can link into your chosen service to generate random email addresses when setting up new accounts. The following example shows how to combine Anonaddy with our favorite password manager Bitwarden (or VaultWarden, its self-hosted variant).

First, sign up for a free account at https://app.anonaddy.com/register. Once you’re verified, you’ll find yourself at its main dashboard. Click your username in the top right corner, select Settings, and scroll down to the API section to generate a new token. Copy this to the clipboard, then open the Bitwarden browser plugin and click the Generator button at the bottom. Make sure ‘Username’ and ‘Forwarded email alias’ are both selected, choose AnonAddy, and paste the token into the API Access Token field. Finally, change the Domain field so it reads username. anonaddy.me (substituting username with your AnonAddy username) to allow you to set up unlimited email aliases with a free account.

Every time you come to sign up for an account, simply go into Bitwarden first to generate a random AnonAddy alias and strong password. Once saved, paste or autofill this into the relevant fields and your email address will remain safely hidden. Logging into your AnonAddy account should confirm the email has been generated—click the edit button under the Alias field if you want to provide a description that explains exactly which account the alias is linked to.

“ It may be fiddly having to input your card details, but it outweighs having your personal data stolen through a data breach.

Email relaying services like AnonAddy help protect your email address.

© ANONADDY

STORE YOUR DATA ONLINE

There’s one compelling reason for storing your personal data in the cloud: it’s secured in an off-site location that would survive fire or theft in your home. The problem lies with the security and privacy of that data. As with all cloud-hosted material, you must ask yourself: who am I trusting my data with, and what steps have they put in place to keep it private?