Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com.
On today's episode let's take a look at coming up with better answers to security questions
to keep your online accounts more secure.
This is one of the tips I give in my book The Practical Guide to Mac Security.
It's about using those security questions.
You know, when you're asked for your mother's maiden name or the name of your first pet.
Something like that.
Lots of different web sites ask these questions.
A lot of people make the mistake of actually putting real answers in there.
These answer can be easily guessed by somebody trying to break into your account.
Even if they don't know you there are a lot of typical names of say the model of your
first car or there are common last names or common pet names.
Things like that.
So you shouldn't use real answers.
As a matter of fact you shouldn't even use fake answers like fake names or fake car models
at all.
Instead you should use a much more secure technique that I teach in the book.
So here is one place that you may run into security questions.
For your Apple ID, which you should keep very secure, you should almost certainly use Two-Step
Verification.
But not everybody can.
If you don't have a mobile device on you at all times, for instance, then you may not
want to use it.
In that case then you've got to use the Security Questions.
The problem is these are very easy to guess the answers for.
For instance, the name of your first pet.
You can probably take the top one hundred pet names and you can guess more than half
the people's answer to this question.
So where you may not be directly broken into using this, somebody trying to get into multiple
Apple ID accounts might be able to get into a few of them by just guessing some good pet
names, some good car model names, that kind of thing.
So the solution is is to forget about using real answers.
Don't even use fake answers like a name that wasn't the name of your first pet because
that could just as easily be guessed as the real name.
Instead you want to use actual passwords here.
Random generated strong passwords.
That will make it virtually impossible for somebody to be able to break into your account
using the security questions.
You see Apple or any site that is asking for the security question answers doesn't really
care about the actual answers.
They don't care if it is a real pet name or not.
They just want something there that you can repeat if you have to call in or enter it
into a form online to prove that you are you.
So the most secure thing to do is to actually use a password there.
A randomly generated password.
For instance I can go to KeyChain Access like I showed you last week.
I can create a new password item and I can use the little key button here to create something.
Let's do something that is letters and numbers just like this.
I will copy it from here.
It's going to automatically be filled in here.
So I'm going to first jump over here and paste it, so now it is there as my answer and then
I'm going to go back here and I'm going to name it.
So I'm going to say Apple ID pet and Apple ID and now I can save it so I'll always have
this recorded in here after I submit it if I need to remember it.
I'm never going to memorize this.
I can go back to Keychain and I can look up in Passwords Apple ID pet right there and
I can get access to it.
There it is.
I can also, if I wanted to and it is a lot easier, sometimes create a Secure Note.
So after I've created all those I can do a New Secure Note Item and just enter what I
want like pet and then that answer and then car and some other answer.
You know whatever I've put in randomly generated.
So I have very easy access to these all at once and you can see there are the answers
if I had completed that.
So it is important to put that in a secure place maybe even write it down or print it
out.
I can copy here and paste in TextEdit and print it out and store it in my desk.
Also I can save it something like LastPass or 1Password or some other password keeper
as well.
Once you have entered all those in you know no one is ever going to in a million years
be able to guess the name of your first pet is this.
They just won't be able to figure it out because they will be looking for a real name and not
a randomly generated password.
That makes your Apple ID account that much more secure, at least as secure as it probably
can be, using security questions rather than Two-Step Verification.