Following a major data breach of 500 million Yahoo! users, Action News met with a local cybersecurity expert to find out how to protect your information, money and your identity online. "Big fan of online shopping—all of the kids' stuff, all of my stuff, all of my stuff for work, everything goes through an online shopping cart," said Valary Cronin, mother of two. Like many, Cronin said she’s never thought much about checking for web security while shopping online. But cyber security experts said—without taking extra precautions online—it only takes hackers seconds to access your information. "Now they have access to all of your credit information, your background and they start stealing and taking over your life," said Matt Boehnke, cybersecurity expert and assistant professor at Columbia Basin College. "That terrifies me," Cronin said. But Boehnke suggests setting up a separate credit card account to use for online purchases only, and he said there are ways to verify if sites are safe. “It's called a secure socket layer: its got that lock at the bottom, we tell people to make sure thats' on there. Then when you go to the top part of the tool bar, it should say 'https' to make sure you have the secure part of that location.” To protect against hackers experts say to make complex passwords for your accounts, change them frequently, and never let sites remember your log in. Social media keep us connected, like snap chat, but cybersecurity experts say applications like this can track our location and store our data. "They are tracking your whereabouts, they are tracking what you're doing, they’re tracking your whole set up, and they’re following your whole lives,” Boehnke said. He suggests users read about an application's policies before downloading or turning off applications abilities to track your location within the settings. He also warns users not to participate in Facebook or Buzzfeed quizzes. He said those are actually data-mining techniques to gain personal information about you. "It's said in psychology, it only takes 10 questions to figure a person out," Boehnke said. "Criminals used to have to dig to get this data, but now people willingly give this up on social media sites that really aren't that safe." Often times the convenience of apps and online shopping means we are giving out private information, so Boehnke said it's important to be educated about the choices we make online and to learn about how to protect against hackers. He said taking an extra step of cybersecurity will save you in the long run. Source: http://keprtv.com/news/local/cybersecurity-how-to-protect-your-private-information