Spring Cleaning can mean more than just organizing your closet, cleaning the windows in your house and washing the baseboards (throwback to my grandmother’s day).
It should also mean cleaning up your devices. Just as you would throw away (or hopefully donate) your old clothes, furniture or books that you no longer use, you should also evaluate the apps on your phone and programs on your computer.
I won’t tell you to decide whether they “bring you joy”. But you do need to delete them before they bring you a cyber attack!
You should especially delete old accounts for stores where you no longer shop or other accounts in which you have entered your payment information. Additionally, any accounts in which you have saved your email address and password are vulnerable.
If any of these old accounts are hacked – and if they are older, chances are they are not secured – the information is vulnerable.
For example, if you opened an account on “ABC Baby Items, Inc.” ten years ago when your sweet angel was first born, you likely are no longer buying diapers, formula or high chairs. If you used a credit card, it likely is expired. But if you used your bank account information, it may still be the same checking account you use today. Or if you used the same email address and password to sign up for that account that you used on Amazon, your bank account, and other sites, you are definitely at risk!