Safe Travels this Holiday!

The Holidays are in full swing and with Christmas just a couple of days away; many have already started their Holiday travels. Being the insurance people that we are, here are a few tips for a safe and secure season of travel.

1) Make your home seem like someone is still there. You can do this several ways. Leave your front and back porch lights on so that at night your house is lit up. Ask a neighbor to collect your mail while you are gone so it doesn’t stack up. You can also ask the post office to hold if for you until you get back. Another way to make it look like you are home is to ask a neighbor to pull in and out of your driveway at some point if it snows giving the appearance that you have been in and out of your house.

2) Don’t show off to the Facebook world that you are on vacation. I know this can be tough for some but letting everyone know you are out of town on Facebook can be dangerous. We recommend waiting until you get home from your trip before you post vacation pictures.

3) Car travelers should be prepared for heavy snow at all times. The best way to do this is to make sure you have extra blankest, windshield washer fluid, ice scrapers and even a small shovel. You never know when you might need any of those things. Also, be sure to have your phone charged during the trip so that you have it in case of an emergency.

4) Don’t skimp on heat in your home: This time last year our big recommendation in our “Traveling Over the Holiday” blog article was to keep the heat in your house at a reasonable level so your pipes don’t freeze. Again, we recommend this.

Those are just a few simple tips. We here at Fey Insurance hope you have a wonderful Holiday and Merry Christmas!

Password Protection

Internet security firm Imperva of Redwood Shores, Calif., recently analyzed 32 million passwords that were exposed in a security breach for an online company in Dec 2009. They not only identified the most common passwords, but also suggested effective methods for creating secure ones.

The hacker in this 2009 breach only posted the member's passwords to the Internet, and was more interested in exposing the company's lax security. If complete usernames, email addresses and passwords were revealed, the ultimate damage could have been devastating. The reason: many people use the same username and password for all online dealings, including banking. Imperva reported the five most common passwords were: 1234, 12345, 123456789, password and iloveyou.

It seems that little has changed over the last 20 years. A review of the 1990 study of Unix password selections found remarkable similarities to the passwords revealed by this recent security breach. The study revealed about 50 percent of the users had the same username and passwords for access to multiple Web sites. Just 10 years ago, hacked Hotmail passwords showed the same passwords selection tendencies in their users.

The short, simple passwords make users susceptible to very basic password attacks. As hackers continue to rapidly adopt smarter password cracking software, consumers and companies will be at greater risk.

Imperva recommends passwords contain at least eight characters and a mix of four different types of characters (upper case, lower case, numbers and symbols). It should not be a name, word or contain any part of an email address.

If you have any questions about including identity theft protection in your insurance policy, feel free to get in touch with us.