Encryption is scary, but with so much of your personal information on your smart phone it's probably a necessary evil. It's easy on the iPhone.

How to Shield Yourself From Smartphone Snoops - NY Times

And if your using Gmail, a good way to increase your security is by using Google Authenticator, its an App on the iTunes store. Usually password recovery is done through an e-mail or text message. Unfortunately both are open to hacking, if somebody has access to your email somehow (such as the Wire Writer who got hacked through Social Engineering through Apple). Or text messages can be redirected if your password is changed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Authenticator

Passwords can be hacked and found out many ways. Just think about how many times you have gotten a new credit card, since a site you used got hacked supposedly. It's happened to me twice. There have been massive data breaches. I just found this listing some recent data breaches from Kaspersky:
http://threatpost.com/en_us/category/topics/data-breaches

Another free tip - if possible, add a password on your credit card. The normal verification questions are not that great.

Labels: hacking, privacy