Digital Spring Cleaning Checklist From the Maine BBB

The Better Business Bureau has all kinds of cleaning tips that will keep your personal and confidential digitally stored information out of the hands of criminals.

When you're done doing the windows, pull out all of your old devices that have any info stored on them. They need a good scrubbing too!

Tips from the BBB to protect you from cyber criminals:

• Adopt strong authentication to add a layer of protection.
• Have kick ass, incredibly complicated passwords and store them safely.
• Back that sh** up! Personal and workplace data needs to be backed up on the regular. Our computers have every detail of our lives from medical records, photos, finances and personal stuff that you might not want to lose-or share.
• For the love of Gawd update your systems! It's easy peasy and helps to keep your information safe and secure.
• You might be surprised how much data you have floating around out there. Got an old computer in storage? Flash drives in your nightstand? Get them gone and scrubbed. Even copiers, fax machines and printers store images that would be gold to a thief. Use a trusted shredding company to handle this stuff. It's actually really hard to destroy data. A couple hits from a hammer might only slow down a savvy cyber thief.
• Clear out stockpiles of old hard drives and other devices.
• Failed drives still contain data people! If there's something important or confidential, don't send it back to the manufacturer. Hire support so that you can keep it, then destroy it.

The Better Business Bureau has lots more tips on their website. Happy spring cleaning!