Just about every frequent traveller and mobile user has heard the warnings, but the prospect of free Wi-Fi is often too tempting to resist. “Just a little status update”, we tell ourselves. “Then maybe I’ll quickly check my email.”

We rationalise that it can’t be that bad. After all, isn’t my connection to Facebook or my online banking already encrypted anyway? As for email, who knows… but surely a few minutes can’t hurt, right?

In truth, it’s far more damaging than you think. Within an open network, snooping is commonplace. Before we get into the dangers of open Wi-Fi, let’s take a look behind the scenes of logging into your favourite sites.

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For the sake of your security, I’d like you to forget your password.

With the amount of login details we’re all increasingly forced to create, it’s becoming a nearly impossible feat to keep track of them all. And please, I beg you… put that sticky note away.

In response to the login-mania that is the modern Internet, experts report there are a lot of serial password offenders out there: those who use the same usernames and passwords all around the net.

In a 2013 UK study of adult internet users, 55% admitted to using the same password for most, if not all websites. While it’s one of the cardinal sins of e-security, password recycling may also seem inevitable for a human with an average of 100 different accounts scattered through cyberspace.

But serial offenders take note: password reuse is no longer excusable. Say hello to the password manager, one of the handiest inventions since sliced bread.

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With recent news of high-profile user accounts hacked on iCloud, Apple’s popular online service that offers remote backups, some of us might be starting to consider ‘cloud’ a dirty word. But don’t believe the hype; ‘cloud’ is just a fancy new word for an old idea.

Online backups have been with us for a long time, but in recent years they’ve been given the fresh new handle of ‘cloud backups’.

At a time when we should all be backing up more, the swell of cloud-hysteria has led to quite a few concerned netizens turning away from one of the most useful ways to back up data. It doesn’t have to come to this! Services such as Carbonite, Mozy, Bitcasa and CrashPlan provide stable, useful backup services.

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In our article about social engineering, we showed you some of the reasons why security questions aren’t always the greatest last line of defence.

However, with countless major sites still keeping them as an important part of their account verification process, it looks like they might be with us for a while yet.

This week, we’re looking at some of the steps you should be taking with your secret questions to keep socially-savvy hackers out of your accounts. Knowing these simple tricks can help you turn an otherwise vulnerable security step to a daunting prospect for crooks.

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News is breaking today about a wide-reaching and extremely serious vulnerability, which the security community has nicknamed Shellshock. Although the security and developer communities are still pulling all-nighters to come to grips with the seriousness of the issue, we at BreachAlarm wanted to fill you in on everything we know, and how it affects you as a casual technology user.

First, the bad news: the Bash software in which the Shellshock bug has been discovered is present in all sorts of computer systems, and we mean all sorts. The web services you use, your work’s network services and infrastructure, your personal computer (especially if you own a Mac), your smartphone (iPhone or Android), the Wi-Fi routers in your home and business, your bank’s ATMs, the cash registers at the stores where you shop, even many of the boxes you plug into your TV, all of these are likely to contain the Bash software. Basically, anything running open source software (and a vast array of commercial products do) is likely to include a copy of Bash. As for what versions of Bash have the bug, how does every version released in the past 20 years sound? Yes, the news is that bad.

At this point, you might be wondering just what this Bash software is, and if it’s so buggy, why it seems to be in every digital device in your life. And what can you even do about it? Allow us to explain.

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