Hump Day Hint: #2 Password Protection

This week's Hump Day Hint is centred around security. In this day and age you can never be too careful when it comes to protecting your information, and that should apply for your bosses information too. As an EA it is a requirement to gather as much information on your Executive as you can - birth date, passport numbers, tax file number, home address, credit card numbers and not to mention the plethora of passwords we collect for them! It would literally be a hacker's paradise to get their hands on this information. But if someone did get their hands on your laptop or phone they would have all the information they need on your boss, all conveniently stored in one place. The truth is, many EAs store all of this information on their boss in a Contact in their phone so that this information is easily accessible, especially when working remotely. 
 
But this is not a secure solution, especially when phone's can be easily lost or stolen. Losing our phone happens to the best of us and its something that is easily done, especially when you carry it around in your hand 90 per cent of the day.

But if the worst did happen and someone did get in to your phone or laptop, they could literally find all the information they need in one place conveniently located under your bosses name in your Outlook contacts!




MiniKeePass

There is however, a raft of apps available in the app store (some free) that can solve this problem for us. Apps like MiniKeePass are a great solution, and not only because they're free, but also because they are well designed so you can set up a database for both yourself and your boss.

On initial set up you can set up different files/databases, as suggested perhaps one for you and one for your boss, or as the image shows you could have different files for work, home etc.

Within each database you then have the ability to file things further into categories, and further into individual listings. You can set up a category for credit cards, one for the family passport details, one for the loyalty programmes etc etc

The app is completely secure requiring your password to open each database, and has no 'forgot password' function that may allow hackers to penetrate it.

I highly recommend you do away with listing sensitive information within your Outlook Contacts, it's a change that is very necessary as we move to a world where cyber security is no longer novel, but instead a necessity.