What the latest celebrity hacks teach us all?

What if your private photos got exposed on the Internet? And what about your Social Security Number? Or your medical history? Wouldn’t you mind?

Of course you would.

So, should leaked celebrities photos or hacked email accounts make you nervous?

• It happened to Adele a year ago – her private photos shared in a Facebook group;
• It happened to Anne Hathaway two weeks ago - Nude photos of her leaked online by hackers;
• It happened to Miley Cyprus, Kirsten Stewart, Tyger Woods ;
• It happened to Gordon Ramsay;
• It even happened to Hilary Clinton.

These hacks involving famous people are much more than an embarrassing moment for them. It should be a piece of advice for all of us.

We’re so used to the automatic convenience of sending emails and sharing files in them that we’ve completely lost track of security. What is more, everyone who uses a smartphone should now be wondering whether their data is safe.

What can be learned from the celebrities’ intrusion in their privacy?

It doesn’t matter if we don’t have anything to hide; protecting our data communication is important because it gives us the right to control what we want to share and what we want to keep to ourselves.

The celebrities are people, too. They need their data and communications protected even more, since any intrusion in their privacy can ruin their reputation.

So, the only solution to protect our privacy nowadays is to implement a strong encryption for our data and communications. The internet has made it incredibly easy to monitor everything we do - emails, cloud storage, text messages, and obviously phone calls. So, encryption is essential if we want to keep our private data confidential.

Other than that you should add layered security to your online accounts and your networks by:

• Choosing strong, hard-to-crack passwords
• Changing passwords from time to time
• Use Multi-factor authentication
• Never reuse the passwords for multiple accounts
• Never use the same password as your partner
• Never save credentials on a device.
• Never write down, store in plain text or provide your password to anyone, even if they claim to be from your IT support group or law enforcement.

Not following these practices and encrypting your communications, can lead not only to hurting your reputation, but possible Identity Theft. And, according to this infographic: “1 out of 4 victims will will never fully recover their stolen identity”. 

So, what if you become a celebrity tomorrow?

• Is there anything you have communicated that you wouldn’t want your fans to know?
• Could any image you own ruin your reputation?
• Would you want to stop everybody from knowing all your contacts and who you communicate with?

If you answered “Yes” to any of these questions you should consider getting yourself an encrypted email account and secure phone on top of following the aforementioned practices.

That being said, you will protect not only yourself, but everyone you communicate with and all your data. And it doesn’t matter if you are a celebrity or not. You should care about your Privacy and the privacy of the people around you. Your reputation can be ruined even if you aren’t a celebrity.

It’s better to be safe, than sorry.