Presentation: WordPress Security at Prezi

Links:

• WordPress on hardening WordPress
• Sucuri: WordPress security news
• Password strength checker
• Making unique passwords
• Using a password manager
• Thwarting keystroke loggers
• Explanation and avoidance of brute force attacks
• Security site that explains database prefixes
• WordPress on general site maintenance
• Database optimization and repair
• Commercial theme builder with many great articles about security
• Another comprehensive security guide

Thank you to those who were able to attend the meetup!

If you don’t want to have to retype a quote and would like to copy and paste from a book, here is the way I have been doing it for several years. I trust this will continue to work into the future. If you are one those persons that like to keep the garden in a good shape, you need to have the best Electric Hedge Trimmer, with is machine your work is going to be easier.

Highlight the Passage

Start by highlighting the passage that you are interested in. You probably already know how to do this. But, if not, each of the Kindle platforms work about the same.

• eInk Non-Touchscreen: Place the cursor at the start of the quote and highlight by pressing the button in the middle of the 5-way controller to start the highlight. Use the directional pad to select the passage.
• Kindle Fire, Android or iOS: Hold a finger on a word within the quote to get the handles that can be dragged to the beginning and end of the passage.
• eInk Touchscreen: I have never used a touchscreen Kindle, so I am not sure the process there.
• Kindle for PC/Mac, Kindle Cloud Reader: Select the text you want with the mouse and then choose the highlight button from the popup screen.

The computer-based readers is where the majority of the frustration for me happens. You would expect that you can copy and paste right from these applications. In the past I know I was able to do so with some books, but the book I am currently reading will not allow it. That may be a change that Amazon has implemented, or it could be publisher specific. I don’t use the computer-based readers often enough to know if this is a new change in the way it works.

Now that your passage is highlighted you can get that text into your word processor in the next step.

View Your Highlights and Notes Online

There is a website that Amazon has setup for you that you may not even know about. It is Kindle.Amazon.com. Once you log in at that site you can choose the link at the top that says Your Highlights. This is where the magic happens. From that page you will see all the passages you have ever highlighted from your Amazon Kindle account.

From each passage you see on that page, you are able to add a personal note or delete the material.

For our purposes, this is also where you can copy the text from the book and paste it into your word processor. As far as I know there are no limitations on how much you can copy from here. However, a publisher may limit the amount of text from their book that can be highlighted in the first place.

Problem Solved!

This should allow you to copy material out of a book while using the Kindle platform. There may be something like this for the Nook platform as well.

Without being too unkind, I assume that if the iBooks platform does not allow you to copy and paste, then there is probably no way around it. That is the type of control and lock-down you submit yourself to when you work with such a closed environment. I know that the Kindle is not an open platform, but I don’t know of any computers or mobile devices where you can’t read your Kindle content. If you buy a book from the iBooks store then you better hope you always have some type of Apple device or you may never be able to read your books in the future.

I hope this helps you get the material you need out of a book and into your preaching or teaching notes. Also, if you are planning on getting a Kindle for yourself, don’t forget to visit https://www.raise.com/coupons/amazon to get a coupon code and use it on your purchase.

You may be scratching your head thinking, “is it worth it to upgrade my to Accordance version 11?” We gave a major overview of what Accordance Bible software offers. I would like to share 5 reasons that I think it is worth upgrading to Accordance 11.

This is an incredible upgrade that makes studying for a message or lesson, or just to understand Scriptures much more efficient.

5 Upgrade Features

1. Info Pane — Verse-Level Resources

First and foremost on my list of things is the Info Pane. This was missing in Accordance, though I didn’t really realize it until I upgraded. Missing this feature was a big hole in Accordance. The Info Pane has filled the gap.

The Info Pane, is really quite incredible and yet slightly different than what any other Bible program offers—at least to my knowledge. It shows all commentaries, cross-references, topics, and parallel passages to the verse being viewed. This now puts every resource in your library at your finger tips. This saves you the time of searching through commentaries, or even overlooking that obscure commentary that you don’t use as often. It makes our job of digging out those gold nuggets of truth a much easier task.

2. Notes — Unicode

Being bi-lingual and having studied a little bit of Greek, Unicode is important to me. I learned a long time ago about the importance of character coding. I will not go into the technical details of it here. But, if you want to copy and paste Greek or Hebrew into your notes, this will be a huge help to you. Or perhaps you are also bi-lingual and need some of those obscure characters on a keyboard on a regular basis. This will be invaluable to you as your notes section will now be more cooperative for you.

3. Quick Entry — Word List on Lookups

This is an excellent addition. Many times I know the name of a Bible character however I cannot remember how to spell it in the language that I’m studying at the time. Being able to type the first few characters and then see it in a list is a great time-saving feature for us. Many Bible names and places are quite foreign to us, and therefore hard to remember or spell. Sometimes there are two names that are similar. The quick entry enables us to see them and pick the one we want. That is a great feature.

4. Bookmarks on the Desktop

One of my favorite features on iOS that I have really missed on the desktop is Bookmarks. Yes, I bookmark verses. Sometimes I will study a passage, and want to continue to refer to that passage. A Bookmark is a great way to do just that. I can flip away, and read a parallel passage. When I’m finished studying the parallel, I can then go right back to my primary passage. This is a great addition.

5. Topical Search

Topical search is helpful for finding what you need on a specific topic. Sometimes it is tough to find a specific verse on a specific topic. This will greatly aid Bible teachers and preachers to find the verse they have been looking for. Or perhaps it will help them locate that verse they knew was in there, but could not remember where it was, even though they knew the topic it dealt with.

Check out the original review of Accordance version 10. The review is still applicable to this version of the software. After you check out the review, head over to the Accordance website for more information.

What is Accordance?

Accordance is a Bible program that you install and use on your computer. There are two or three primary ways of doing things.  Some people like to study the physical books that they hold in their hands. Others use the Internet to study the Bible, generally depending on favorite web sites that host Bibles, commentaries and dictionaries on their web site and allow the use of them. And then there are those who install a Bible program on their computer or tablet and use it when not connected to the Internet. We will be reviewing a single program that is installed on the computer and used to study the Word of God.

With that being said, let’s roll up our sleeves and get into the specifics of this program.

Platforms

First and foremost, what does Accordance Bible Software run on? It was originally developed for Mac computers, which perhaps is opposite of many programs. They later developed a version for Windows computers. This review is written by a Mac user, and therefore will be given from that point of view. They show Accordance being used on Windows computers in some of their video podcast episodes. It seems to run equally well on Windows systems. When you buy the software, it can be used on either platform. You don’t buy a Windows version, and then have to invest in a Mac version later, or vice versa. As a bonus, you can buy it and actually use it on more than one operating system. It is a single user’s license, however it can be used for example on a Windows computer at work, and then on a Mac at home by the user it is licensed to.

From their website:

Universal License
All you need is one Accordance 10 license to run Accordance on up to five separate Windows, Mac, or iOS devices. If you already own Accordance 10 for Mac, no additional purchase is necessary to run Accordance 10 on your Windows PC. Just download the app, enter your user name and password, and begin downloading your Accordance modules.

Portability

Accordance is currently offered only for iOS. There have been a few discussions on the forums about Android, but mostly they are requests. Nothing formally has been started in this direction, however it may come in the future.

Their iOS app is top notch. It, of course, doesn’t offer all the power that a desktop offers, however it does have the ability to sync between the desktop and iOS device. It offers syncing with either Dropbox, or straight from their program to the hand-held device on the same network. Both ways of syncing work equally well. Comparatively Dropbox can be a little slower, but both work great. It has the ability to sync the user’s notes as well as user materials. When syncing directly with Accordance, the resources the user owns (dictionaries, commentaries etc.) can be directly added to the iOS device, making it much faster than downloading them from the web.

Performance

Wow! That is all I can say about the speed of the search and verse lookup. You can see lightning strike, but a normal person cannot time lightning striking. That is the ability of the search of the Bible apps in Accordance. While searching all materials—well, it would depend on the size of the library—however, it isn’t as quick. It is still fast though. There are many variables that can be set in the searching options. The speed to search the entire library can depend on the options that are set there.

It has a normal to good startup speed. This can be optimized. I heard one user say they shut off the startup screen to get a quicker startup speed. It is very reasonable startup time on my Mac compared to many of the other apps that I use, and faster than the other Bible programs that I have.

Publications

Search their store to see everything they have to offer. There is a lot of material that I already had with other Bible programs, however what they have done to them is quite impressive. They are searchable by Scripture reference, English content, as well as titles. I have also come to realize over the years, that sometimes you may think that you have a book or a commentary in a program, but you may actually have a watered down, lightened version. A few times in the past I was looking in a physical book and saw stuff that was missing in the electronic version in other programs. Of course that isn’t advertised, but it happens. This doesn’t seem to be the case for the materials offered in Accordance. If you are looking for a specific title, search their web site, and see if it is there. If it isn’t there, check on the forums to see if anyone has requested the title. Perhaps it is already being worked on. However much of the material that they have is a good addition to anyone’s library.

Their graphics suite is incredible. It is more than just looking at maps and timelines. The user can search for a person in the timeline, click on their name to bring up information on that person in their dictionaries. They can then change what time periods can be viewed, as well as kingdoms. Their maps are similar. You can overlay lots of extra data on top of the maps to see where kingdoms stretched too. They also have routes programmed into the maps—which you can see demonstrated in the video below. You can view the long trek that Abraham took when he left Ur. You can watch the route of Mary and Joseph as they head to Bethlehem, and then flee for Egypt. I was quite impressed with the maps and their ability to see the journeys and even the terrain elevation.

Price

While the price may seem high, the old saying rings true! You get what you pay for. I have probably used about every ‘free’ Bible program under the sun. I will not weary you by naming them all here. Suffice it to say, I have probably used Bible programs that many have never even heard of. In all of the Bible programs that I have used, I have never used a Bible program that was integrated as well as this program is. Without a doubt, the Accordance Bible program takes the cake. It is one of the most comprehensive programs I have ever used. So, yes it does have an up-front cost, but again, you get what you pay for. If you are serious about studying the Word of God, this program is for you. If you have any doubt, or are concerned about laying out that much money, watch their free training videos to really see what can be accomplished with this program. That is probably the best thing that you can do to really understand the usefulness of this program. Having viewed the first three, I can testify they are extremely helpful and informative, and may help you make an informed decision. They offer a limited trial as well, though it has limited resources to work with. They also offer different collections of materials all put together. Again, you can mix and match different titles or even different bundles to get exactly what you want. This can be a great way to get started, and build a library little by little.

I took an entire commentary set that is being offered, and divided that cost per book that is in the set. It came out to $7 a book (without any discounts). I quickly checked on Amazon, and couldn’t find the same book at that price. That book was running about $10-25 for the same title (before shipping charges). I have also priced their resources with other programs, and they have consistently come out with very competitive prices for their titles.

With the price being what it is, it is always good news to find out about discounts. They offer a variety of discounts for full-time ministers, home-schoolers, students, as well as over seas missionaries, and others! So do yourself a favor and see if you qualify for any discounts. It always helps.

Program Support

Learning a new program can be a daunting task. Their self-help material is great. Everything from their training videos to the help file in their program. One is not in the dark stumbling around trying to figure out how to use this program. This program is really not that difficult to pickup and start learning. I do recommend their training videos to really become efficient at using their program to its full potential. If you have trouble understanding something, their forums are very helpful as well.

I have had a few opportunities to use their support. There was a faulty download with my install (my poor Internet connection kept disconnecting during the download). They were quick, friendly, and diagnosed the problem promptly. After a few moments I was back on track re-downloading the material that was incomplete before. Also on the forums they have always been helpful. I thought I found a bug, however it turned out that I didn’t understand how something worked. Again, everything was straightened out, and I was back on track. Help has always been prompt and friendly.

Pondering

Recently, as a missionary changing from one field to another, I have had to get rid of a lot of books from my library. It was painful and very difficult process to decide what books to get rid of. I had imported books into the country for 11 years and one trip out would not allow me to take them all home. Many were books in English which would not help anyone but other English-speaking missionaries. It was then I decided I must replace my heavy library full of paper books with electronic texts that do not weigh extra. That is what prompted my search for a good Bible program with a good set of library materials available to me. I hope that you have benefited from my research and that I could be a blessing to you.

I have used free Bible programs on the desktop, Android, and iOS, and yes to even date myself, I date back to the Palm OS platform. I cannot even count, much less remember the names of all the Bible programs that I have used throughout the years. As a missionary, I often find myself in the need of foreign Bible versions in a program. I have even become proficient at importing my Bible texts into many different Bible programs that give you the option to do so. With that experience, I found that I could import a Bible text into Accordance within about 3 days of having the program. That being said, I was pleased with their simple interface to import a text. While probably most people aren’t going to go importing a Bible text right off the bat, I simply bring it up to say that it can be done, and is a nice feature they have included in their program.

It is a great program. I have refrained from comparing this program to other Bible programs for a few reasons. It is in a class of its own. It is certainly a top-notch program from a technical standpoint. From a preacher’s standpoint, it is an excellent program. I was completely impressed with its interlinear ability to highlight all keywords across several different Bible texts that are tagged with the Strong’s numbers.  Its search feature is impressive, flexible and dynamic. The material it offers is very complete with more to be acquired with time and money. Lastly, I have heard it mentioned a few times, Accordance keeps the Bible at the center of your studies. I was shocked to try another major Bible program and find that was not the case. Personally, I prefer the Bible to be the center of my study. I prefer to read and study the text of the Word of God, and base my studies off what is found and written therein. I study themes and I look at other material, but the Bible is always the center of my study. If that is what you are looking for, then Accordance is what you need to get the job done. I’m by no means an expert on Accordance; but from what I have learned, it has been a great blessing. I look forward to many hours of productive study with Accordance.

PDF Text

Copying the text of a PDF is easy as long as the one you are working with was created from a computer file. You can copy and paste text from it just like you would from a normal document.

However, if the PDF was created from a scan of the original document, then the PDF you now have is essentially just an image file that does not have the text embedded. For a short document (a page or three), the fastest way to get the text into your new format is to retype it. There are ways to do optical character recognition (OCR) on the image to get the text into a usable format, but it is much more trouble than it is worth for short documents.

PDF Images / Pictures

The way I get the pictures out of a PDF is to click on the image and then right-click on it. You get a deceptively hopeful pop up that you can click on, or hit Ctrl+C (Cmnd+C on a Mac) to make a copy of the image. But you can’t just paste the image into a blog post in this way. It will, however, work fine if you are pasting into a word processing document.

If you need just the image saved into a JPG or other image format, then you can use an image editing program like The Gimp. Open the program and select File | Create | From Clipboard. This will create a new document that is formatted exactly the size of the original image that is embedded in the PDF. The shortcut is Shift+Ctrl+V in Windows, Mac and Linux. (Gimp uses standard Linux shortcuts on the Mac and does not substitute Command for Control like in other programs).

Now you can save the new image as a normal image file. In Windows you may have to export it to a JPG or PNG file. Converting from jpg 2 pdf and backwards is an easy task. But in Linux and Mac you can save directly to those formats.

• Thunderbird — Can be used on Linux, Mac, and Windows

Mailing List Programs

• Constant Contact — The one the office uses
• MailChimp — My recommendation for those getting started
• Vertical Response — The one Bro. Price mentioned
• MailPoet — WordPress based
• PHPList — The one I use for my newsletters

Website

• WordPress — For running on your own host
• SquareSpace

Office Tools

• LibreOffice
• OpenOffice.org
• Kingsoft / WPS Office
• Google Drive

Photo Manipulation

• Paint.net
• iPhoto
• GIMP
• Google+

CRM — Contact Relationship Management

• TntMPD
• Zurmo
• SuiteCRM
• SugarCRM Community Edition

Note Taking

• OneNote
• Evernote

Web Browsers

• Firefox
• Chrome

Cloud Storage

• Dropbox
• OneDrive
• Google Drive
• Box
• iCloud

While there are many good choices in most of these categories, I have tried to limit the list to just a few so that it is not too overwhelming. Please let me know in the comments if there is a significantly better tool that I can recommend.

3-2-1 Backup: at least 3 copies, 2 medium, 1 off site

• Carbonite
• Crashplan
• Mozy
• Backblaze

Antivirus/Malware/Spyware

• Security Essentials (pre-Windows 8)
• Malwarebytes
• Spybot: Search and Destroy
• SUPERAntiSpyware

Password Management

• LastPass

Hard Drive Erasing

• DBAN

VPN

• PrivateInternetAccess
• StrongVPN
• OpenVPN

Internet Filter / Proxy Service

• OpenDNS
• Covenant Eyes
• K9
• Net Nanny

What is Heartbleed?

Heartbleed is a server-side vulnerability which could have affected as much as 66% of the secure websites on the Internet. Thankfully, the truth is that only about 17% of sites were actually vulnerable. These are sites that that serve secure content using certain versions of the OpenSSL protocol. Depending on the browser you are using, these are the sites that show either a lock icon or a green security bar indicating that anything you send to and from the site is protected from prying eyes.

What Heartbleed does (or “did” since most of the vulnerable sites have been fixed) is that when your computer exchanges information with the secure website you are using, a third party could request information that is stored in the server’s RAM. Mostly that information is random nothingness. But, it could also as easily be your login credentials, and most alarming, the security certificate of the server. Of course, if your username and password were in the data that was exchange it would be a bad thing—especially if you use the same password at any other site. The bad guys would then have everything they need to pretend they are you across the web. That is why unique passwords are important.

However, the greater threat is if the security certificates of the affected site were captured by the malicious third party. What they could do with that information is set up a rogue website pretending to be a trusted business; for example, your bank. They can then collect usernames and passwords of anyone trying to log into the bank or other trusted site.

Obviously these are very serious problems. On top of the seriousness of this vulnerability, the problem has existed for 2 years. However, it seems that the damage is not near as bad as it could have been. As soon as the problem became public, websites patched their systems to close off the potential threat. Yet, the problem cannot be ignored even though the patch was rolled out within hours of the problem being announced.

What do you need to do?

Changing passwords at the affected sites should be sufficient to protect any further damage.  Even though sites have patched their servers, if the vulnerability has been used against you previous to the patch, then the bad guys potentially have your information. If you knew about the problem within the first couple of days of the Heartbleed announcement, you may have seen the recommendation to wait before changing your passwords at some sites. That was good advice then; however, it is now appropriate to change your password at all affected sites. The reason to wait was because changing your password before the site updated their system, meant that your new credentials were then exposed.

Now is the time to change your passwords at any affected sites. Here is a list of very popular sites that were affected by the bug. They have now all patched their servers and you should definitely change your passwords at those sites. Below the list I tell about a tool where you can check the status of any secure site.

Change your password at these sites:

• Amazon Web Services (but not the regular Amazon.com that you use for shopping)
• Box
• Dropbox
• Etsy
• Facebook
• GoDaddy
• Google (this includes any Google property: GMail, Google Voice, Google Drive, YouTube, etc.)
• IFTTT
• Instagram
• Netflix
• Pinterest
• Twitter
• WordPress (this is WordPress.com. If you are running your own version of WordPress on your server, it would depend on your host as to whether you were vulnerable.)
• Yahoo! (this includes any Yahoo! property: Yahoo! Mail, Flickr, etc.)

Again, these are popular sites and certainly not a comprehensive list. There are many tools to check and see if a site was vulnerable. I have used the one at LastPass and find it helpful in telling if a site was vulnerable, if it has been fixed, and whether a password should definitely be changed. Any website you log into should be checked using this tool or a similar one. Especially make sure you check the status of your bank’s website. And healthcare ones that go in there. A clinic like Anti Aging Scottsdale can really help you out when you need to.

Here is a short list of sites that were not affected and therefore do not require a password change: 1Password, Amazon (the shopping site), American Express, AOL, Apple, Bank of America, Capital One, Carbonite, Chase, Citigroup, eBay, Evernote, Groupon, H & R Block, HealthCare.gov, Hotmail/Outlook, Hulu, Intuit (Quicken/TurboTax), IRS, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Mint, Pandora, PayPal, Skype, Target, Walmart.

There is nothing wrong with changing passwords even if the site is not on the list. Changing passwords often is recommended. Make sure you use a unique password for each website. This is easily done by using a password manager like LastPass to keep track of your passwords.

You must remember that even if you use a password manager, they only keep your passwords safe from unauthorized use while the passwords are stored in the locker. But those passwords are still potentially compromised if the site they belong to was vulnerable to Heartbleed. Because Yahoo! was vulnerable, then your Yahoo! account is potentially vulnerable even if your password was stored in a secure password manager. If the recommendation above is to change your password, then change them even if they are in a password manager like LastPass, 1Password or Dashlane.

Why is it necessary to change your passwords?

Here is a worst case scenario for you to consider. Because GMail is affected by Heartbleed I need to change my password at Google/GMail. Thankfully my bank was not affected. However, let’s say that someone compromised my GMail account and got control of my mailbox. They could go to my bank’s website and use the “I forgot my password” link to reset my password. The bank would then send an email to my GMail account with a link in it to reset my password. Because they have access to my GMail account, the bad guys would be able to reset the password at my bank and have full control of the tens of dollars I keep in there.

By getting access to an online email addresses, the bad guys would then be able to reset any password of any account tied to those email addresses. Therefore it is critical to change the passwords on GMail and Yahoo! (or any other online mail accounts) since it is possible to reset any account tied to those email addresses.

The target wasn’t necessarily usernames and passwords initially. But they can be harvested if a server’s security certificate were compromised. If you use the same password at multiple sites and the bad guys know your password, they can try every other website using your email address or username and password to access all your accounts. That is why unique passwords are important and that you change your passwords at any affected sites.

You don’t need to live in fear that the sky is falling, but you do need to change some of your passwords. What I hope does scare you is the scenario I propose because that is exactly where the risk is. I know that changing passwords is not fun (I’ve been working on changing mine too), but it is a simple thing you can do to mitigate the threat from Heartbleed.

Thwarting Keyloggers

There are two things I do to make it difficult for keystroke loggers to grab passwords from me: clever keyboarding and using a password manager. One often cited suggestion is to use an onscreen keyboard. However, According to brighter guide there is no guarantee that the software is not also logging its input, but if you’re really into writing and words, using a words with friends cheat is great for word games.

Clever Keyboarding

When I do have to type a password on a potentially insecure computer, I do so with a certain process. To teach this, let’s take an example from the building unique passwords article to use as our base. The password we will use is the fictional one we created for the MissionaryGeek website: mWi4sTs3iR.

When typing this password at a potentially risky internet cafe, I start the password like normal: mWi. Then I insert random gibberish for a set number of characters. So now my typed password so far is something like mWi3*huP9. The important thing here is to remember how many extra characters were inserted. I always use the same number of characters and the same characters. That way my password looks identical each time the system records it, but it won’t work for anyone trying to use it.

Next I type the rest of the password like normal. So my full password that is typed in looks like this: mWi3*huP94sTs3iR. Here is the important step: Using only the mouse, I go back and highlight the extra characters that were inserted that were not part of the real password. The reason you want to do this with the mouse is that keyloggers by themselves can’t see what the mouse is doing.

Now with the extra characters highlighted, hit the backspace key one time. What all of this looks like to a keyboard logger is that your password is: mWi3*huP94sTs3i. It sees that you hit the backspace key one time which assumes that your password is the whole thing minus the R at the end. Of course, you deleted those 6 extra characters in the middle and left the R alone. The keylogger only knows that something was deleted, but it does not know where or how many characters the mouse highlighted.

Password Manager

Using a password manager allows you to copy and paste your account passwords without doing any typing. A hardware or software keylogger can’t see what you don’t type.

To get into the online version of the password manager I use the above strategy to type in my master password. I don’t want to install the password manager on a computer that I don’t own no matter how often it prompts me that doing so will be more convenient. I am not looking for convenience, I am looking for security. People can read more here and find out about computer services.

Now that I am logged into my password manager, I can copy and paste using the mouse. This completely eliminates a keyboard logger from doing its work.

Browser Tricks

Using incognito, or private browsing, and clearing the browser cache when done are two more ways to safeguard your information. These steps do not keep a keylogger from doing its work, but it protects you from other potential threats that are worth mentioning here.

Using Incognito Mode

I always try to use Firefox or Chrome on the potentially insecure computer.  Both of these browsers have the ability to open a private browsing or incognito session. No passwords are saved by the browsers in these special browsing sessions. This protects you from the browser conveniently storing login information for you.

Clearing Browser Cache

Even though I use an incognito window or private browsing session, I will still manually clear the cache of any browser I use. Also be sure to manually close the browser at the end of your session. This causes one more step in the browser memory to be flushed.

Clearing Firefox Cache and History

Instead of giving you all the steps here, let me point you to the Mozilla Firefox website which does a good job of explaining how to delete the cache and clear your browsing history. These are two distinct processes that you should do when using Firefox. Don’t forget to shut down the browser when your are done.

Clearing Chrome Cache and History

In Chrome, find the Menu which is usually indicated by the three horizontal bars symbol: ☰. Choose Settings and then Advanced settings. Click on the box that says Clear browsing data… Select every item in the list and choose the option, Obliterate the following items from: the beginning of time. Then hit the Clear browsing data button. Make sure you close the browser after you complete the wipe of information.

Other Tips

Take a peek at the cable connecting the keyboard to the computer. A hardware keylogger will be plugged into the computer between the keyboard and the machine. You can unplug the keyboard from the keystroke logger and plug it back in directly to the USB port. However, this only eliminates a hardware keylogger. If they also have a software keylogger in place, you still are not safe. Because of this, I personally don’t even bother looking at the keyboard connection.

Change your passwords when you get back from your trip. Take some time to note all the accounts you log into from the foreign machine and change those as soon as you get to a known safe computer. You should also change your master password for your password manager software.

Is This Effective?

These are the best tips I know for bypassing keyloggers. I have been using this strategy for a few years and have never had a password compromised that I know of. Do you have any better suggestions? Share them in the comments below.

After I had a phone stolen about a year ago I started using LastPass to generate and store passwords for me. There are several good solutions out there. My choice of LastPass was basically because I had heard quite a bit about it and therefore started my research with them. When I found it fit all my needs, I decided to commit my passwords to them. You should do your own research on password managers to find one that works for you, but to help you get started I have listed a few at the bottom of this article.

Password Management Options

There are different ways that you can create and manage your passwords. Some are viable options while others are really awful (like keeping your passwords on a sticky note under your keyboard). To give you an idea of the scope of options, here are a few different ways you can manage passwords.

Write Them Down

While we have always been told to never write down our passwords, it isn’t the worst thing you can do (unless your passwords live on the aforementioned sticky notes under the keyboard). Some people keep a list of passwords in an encrypted document on their hard drive. If you have a few passwords that are really complicated that you need to keep on hand, carrying them in your wallet on a piece of paper is an option that is as secure as you keep your credit cards. That all depends on how careful you are about your credit cards.

If you use a keyboard pattern that can be built by starting on one key and progressively working through the keyboard, then you can write down your account name and the key that the password starts on. It would be easy to build your password just by knowing the starting point of the pattern. Of course, that would mean that if you revealed your pattern to anyone, then they would know all your passwords just by seeing your list.

Browser Password Management

Modern browsers offer to store your passwords for you. This is convenient when you are sitting at your own computer. You can have an unlimited number of unique passwords that you don’t have to remember, but it leaves you unable to log into anything if you are away from your own machine. That is, unless you use the feature like Chrome and Firefox have where you log into an account and your information is synched across browser sessions. Just don’t forget to log out if you are using a computer that is not your own machine.

This sounds like a good option until you realize that if your machine gets stolen then the bad guys have access to all your passwords. You should have a strong login password that keeps them from easily getting access to your data and other passwords as a first line of defense. If the bad guys do get in, or if you leave your computer logged in all the time, then it is a trivial matter to find the file where all your passwords are stored and make a quick copy. This is true for two of the most popular browsers, Chrome and Firefox. If you are still using IE, I have to question why you even care about password security since the browser has been terribly insecure in so many other areas in the past.

The password management system that I want to emphasize in this article though is to use a password manager like LastPass. This has been my personal choice of software for this task, but there are several other options you may want to consider. See the list at the bottom of the article to help you get started.

Password Management Software

As mentioned, I use LastPass, but many of these same features are available in most password management software packages.

Strong Master Password

Whichever password manager you decide to use, it should be locked down with a strong master password or passphrase. A passphrase is generally considered any password that is longer than 20 characters. Use a good strong password with letters, numbers and symbols (that are not standard English words) as part of your master password.

This password is used to encrypt and decrypt the password file that resides on your computer. All of your passwords are only as safe as your master password is strong.

While it is a little inconvenient, make sure your password manager requires you to enter your master password each time you reboot your computer or restart your browser. This ensures that if someone steals your computer and is able to log in, they will have to know your master password before they can start harvesting your other passwords.

Password Generation

LastPass (and other password managers) will generate random passwords for you. You can set the length and complexity of these passwords. Of course you are also able to manually type in any password that you want to use. This allows you to continue to use passwords that you have memorized, but store them in the management software.*

Password managers usually work in conjunction with your browser of choice. With LastPass, when I need to create a new login, I simply right-click on the password field at the website where I am creating a new login name and password and tell the software to generate a random password for me. I don’t have to memorize it since the software will do it for me.

Password Entry Without Using a Keyboard

Another great feature of password management software is that they let you enter a password without typing anything. This is especially helpful when you are at a location that may be using keyboard logging software to harvest passwords. By safely logging into your password manager, you can copy and paste passwords, or even use a single mouse click to enter your information.

Browser Plugins

Choose a password manager that integrates with the browser you most often use. Many will work with multiple browsers. This gives you all the convenience of using the in-browser password manager with the security of the password management software.

*Manual Password Creation

There may be times when you don’t want to have a password that is impossible to memorize. For example, in places where you often need to type a password on a mobile device or someone else’s computer, but you don’t want to log into your password manager account to do so is a good time to have a more easily memorized password. I do this for places that I visit often from computers that don’t belong to me. In those cases I use my password building strategy and tricks to thwart keyboard loggers.

There are various features that set one password manager apart from the others, but the above features should be part of any that you choose. Again, do the research to find which one works best for your needs.

Various Password Management Solutions

• LastPass
• 1Password
• KeePass
• Dashlane
• RoboForm
• mSecure

Your Choice?

Have you already decided on which password manager you like? I invite you to write a comment below on why you made the choice you did. Or, if you would like to write an extensive argument for why you should not use a password manager, then I invite you to contact me about writing a guest post offering a differing opinion for the MissionaryGeek readers. I would also be interested in any in depth write up on why one solution is better than another.