Video Transcript
Full Speech Video: Speaking to Inform
“Securing Yourself Online”
You are at risk. All of us are at risk. And I’m not taking about STDs, global warming
or terrorism. I’m talking about your life online. You are at risk of having your
computer taken over so that perfect strangers can read your email, access your bank
accounts, pilfer your credit card numbers and even steal your identity. I’ve seen this
over and over again at my summer job as a computer technician at a nationwide
computer store. You wouldn’t believe how many computers are compromised and
infected! As college students, we’re particularly vulnerable because we spend so
much time online.
According to David Tatar, manager of Wisconsin’s Consumer Office of Privacy
Protection, 32% of all identify theft claims are filed by people between the ages of 18
and 29 years old. That’s the largest percentage of any age group! Today, I’d like to
explain three additional steps that experts recommend for online security: using
strong passwords, using secure connections and double-checking links before clicking
on them.
Step 1: The first step is using strong passwords for email accounts, bank accounts
and everything else that you do online. What makes a strong password? Take a look
at this example: IwbiP semicolon, semicolon 4387 hyphen CSamFF. Now, this is a
long password, but that’s part of its strength. The first criteria of having a strong
password is having ten characters. Fifteen or more is even better like the one I
showed you. It should also include upper and lowercase letters, numbers and
punctuation such as semicolons, hyphens and underscores. According to Microsoft’s
online guide to creating strong passwords, when your passwords contain long
combinations of seemingly random letters, numbers and punctuation, your security
increases exponentially. Meaning that a password like the one I showed you is
literally billions of times more secure than something short and ordinary like “hot
dog” or “college.”
In addition to having a strong password, you should use a secure connection
whenever possible. How do you know if a connection is secure or insecure? Here’s an
insecure connection: If you look at the address bar, you’ll see the first letters are h-t-t-p, highlighted here with the red arrow. Whenever you see h-t-t-p in a website
address, your connection is not secure. It’s fine to read websites with this kind of
connection, but you should never transmit sensitive information over h-t-t-p. When
the connection is secure, it will begin with h-t-t-p-s as in this example. Think of the
“s” as standing for “safe” or “secure.”
So far, we’ve seen the importance of having a strong password and of using secure
connections whenever transmitting sensitive data. The third step is double-checking
links before you click them. This is a little more involved than the previous steps, but
it’s just as important. For example, here’s an email that was supposedly sent from
my bank, Franklin Bank. It tells me that I need to click on the blue link in order to
update my account information. But if we take a closer look, we can see that while
the link says bankfranklin.com, the actual destination is another site entirely. If I
hold my cursor over the link for a second or two without clicking on it, the yellow box
that pops up will show the real website. Not Franklin Bank, but something called s-s-e-d-u dot org dot c-n forward slash d-e-d-e. This looks like it might be my bank’s
information, but it’s not. It’s a fraudulent website run by a hacker who’s trying to
gain access to my financial information. By double-checking potentially questionable
links before you click on them, you can avoid scams like this one.
What do you do if the email link doesn’t match the one your cursor reveals? The
answer is—don’t click. It’s as simple as that. At the beginning of this speech, I said
that you’re at risk and that’s true, but you’re not helpless. I’ve shared three proven
ways to protect yourself: strong passwords, secure connections and double-checking
links. I hope you’ll find this information helpful as you fight this endless battle for
online security.