Passwords have come a long way since the days of Prohibition, when a knock on the door of a speakeasy required the necessary password for entry and the consumption of illegal liquor. Today, we use passwords and personal identification numbers for just about everything online, in an effort to protect the privacy of our personal information.

Identity theft has grown rampant, proliferating at a time when almost every personal or business transaction passes through one or more computer network. According to the Federal Trade Commission’s latest annual report (covering the 2015 calendar year, with the 2016 report due out in February 2017), there were 480,000 identity theft complaints filed during that time period. Of these, 45% involved tax- or wage-related fraud, 16% involved credit card fraud, 10% involved phone or utilities fraud, 6% involved bank fraud, and 4% involved loan fraud.

One recent report surmised that 15 million Americans have become the victims of identity theft in 2016. That means that 7% of all adults have been victimized in this year alone, with an approximate per-instance loss of $3,500.00. On average, these people spend an additional $500.00 and 30 hours of time trying to recover their identities and make their private information less vulnerable.

Start with Your E-Mail Passwords

My company provides e-mail hosting services through Google and Rackspace for our website hosting clients, and it is rare for a few days to pass without being contacted by a client who has purchased a new computer or mobile device but has misplaced an e-mail account password. For obvious reasons, we do not store those passwords, and we strongly advise our clients to keep records of their passwords in a secure location. Our only option is to assist with changing the lost password, which will then require that passwords be updated on any other actively used devices.

When setting up those e-mail accounts (or updating a password), clients are often annoyed that we will not agree to use a weak password like 123456, abc123, password, passw0rd, qwerty, steelers, yankees, football, baseball, camaro or firebird. (Yes, those are actual passwords that consistently show up on compiled lists of weak passwords.) In fact, Google’s Gmail will not allow an admin to use a password that is made up of fewer than 8 characters (although there are no further password security requirements beyond this minimum length.)

Some people make an attempt at generating a secure password that they can still remember. For example, they might concoct “AIwfCim2ft” from “All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth.” The rule of thumb is to use something that is both easy to remember and difficult to guess. This is definitely a step in the right direction, but something totally random that also uses special characters and spaces would be even better, although far less memorable.

Secure passwords will provide a layer of protection against some bad character obtaining your password and hacking into one of your accounts, but they are of far less value in protecting your identity should your account be one of thousands (or millions) compromised in a major data breach.

Hacks Happen

You do not need to be Sony Pictures getting under the skin of Kim Jong Un. Big companies are routinely targeted by hackers from around the globe, putting the security of their subscribers at risk when a breach occurs. In general, big businesses take extraordinary measures to attempt to maintain the utmost security standards, but it is an ongoing game of cat and mouse. For example, Facebook alone has paid out over $5 million to date in its not-highly-publicized Bug Bounty program, where it pays independent “white hat” hackers to identify and repair security vulnerabilities.

That is an example of what one big online business is doing; however your own personal security is to a great degree your own responsibility. You will want to check (and often disable) routinely loose security settings when you buy a new computer or mobile device or when you upgrade one of those to a new operating system. Keep in mind that settings that benefit convenience and ease of use are very often directly at odds with the safeguarding of your personal security.

There are many ways that passwords can be hacked online. The most common technique is the use of dictionary attacks, where commonly used words are highly vulnerable and easily uncovered. Another technique consists of using the brute force of computing power and sophisticated software to run through every possible combination of characters. The more bits of data involved (directly proportional to the number and random nature of characters), the longer it will take to hack a password. Complex character combinations and the use of encryption slow down, but will not prevent, the disclosure of a password to a determined intruder.

There are actually times when a company or individual needs to recover a lost password, and there are other instances where law enforcement needs to crack a password in order to uncover criminal activity. We are all familiar with the FBI vs. Apple Computer encryption debate, involving a cell phone owned one of the shooters in the December 2015 San Bernardino, California terrorist attack. Whether used for good or bad, there are dozens of free, open-source brute force hacking tools that can be easily found and downloaded online. Their existence and ease of access should provide a wake-up call to any computer or mobile device user.

Just in case you think that one of your own passwords is “secure enough”, enter it into this online tool for what will probably be a rude awakening:
https://howsecureismypassword.net/

Minimum Standards

The minimum standards for password security that are generally considered acceptable today involve the use of at least 12 (preferably 16) entirely random characters (a mix of upper and lower case letters, numbers, spaces and special characters), never including a dictionary word or a repeated sequence, and with no password used in more than one application.

There are several online tools that will assist you in generating secure random passwords. Using one of these tool, I just generated a random 16-character password that I then entered into the secure password test site (shown above.) According to that site, the password that I entered would take 41 trillion years to crack. Here are two such password generator tools. Give one of them a try:
Password Generator
https://passwords-generator.org/
Bitwarden Password Generator
https://bitwarden.com/password-generator/

Storing Passwords

The best advice for keeping track of your cryptic passwords is to always maintain a written paper record in a very secure location. To simplify your life, you can also use one of several password managers that will allow you to encrypt and store all of your passwords in one secure location. You will only have to remember one password to access your files. (If you have been following along and learning from what I have written, that password will meet the standards that I have outlined above.)

The following are some of the best free password managers. They all work across multiple devices. Compare their features and choose one:

LastPass • Dashlane • KeePass

Bear in mind that even these password managers are vulnerable to hackers; however, in one documented security breach, only users with weak passwords were impacted. We are over a month into a New Year. Resolve to at least take a step in a positive direction when it comes to your online security.

We all tend to think that technology makes life easier, believing that it can simplify the task of generating a new stream of business. While there is some truth to that idea, the fact is that the most effective technologies require a commitment of both time and old-school business principles. If you are a small business owner, the time that must be invested is quite likely to be your own.

The Internet is often seen as a technological panacea with respect to the harvest of a new base of customers. For campgrounds, the entire online process is typically funneled toward online reservations, the e-commerce component of the hospitality industries. Unfortunately, many people still buy into the “if you build it, they will come” concept that was the mantra of the 1989 fantasy-drama film, Field of Dreams. Things are not that simple in real life, and the reservation process rarely flies on autopilot.

In many instances, prospective online customers have pre-purchase questions that must be answered prior to making their decisions. These inquiries are almost always going to involve either e-mail or a phone call, with the customer expecting a prompt response (in the case of e-mail) or an immediate response (in the case of a phone call).

For campgrounds in the northern states and Canada, winter is the off-season, when owners are operating with skeleton staffs and simply trying to pay their utility bills and mortgages. Others are more fortunate and are able to vacation when their parks are closed for the season. This is perfectly understandable in either case; however, the off-season is the prime time for campers to make reservations for the upcoming season, and it is also the time when you, as a campground owner or manager, are likely to have the least number of interruptions competing for your attention.

If somebody is determined to camp exclusively at your park, they may be more patient in awaiting a response to an immediate question; however, a camper who is seeking a park in your local area may very well be contacting you and several of your competitors. Being the first to respond is the equivalent of getting your business to appear on the first page of Google or Bing search results.

If you are away from the office or away on vacation, either make arrangements to access and respond to your e-mails or delegate that responsibility to a trusted employee. Never use an auto-responder, which simply encourages the recipient to look elsewhere. Try to use personalized templates that will streamline the response process and that will minimize the number of back-and-forth e-mails that must be exchanged. Next, check to insure that the sender name on your e-mails is clear and intuitive to the recipient. It should include the name of your business. I am amazed at how many e-mails arrive in my inbox identified solely by vague sender names such as ‘info’, ‘reservations’, ‘office’, or some other generic term. If a customer has contacted several parks, ensure that he or she can immediately identify the source of your response. Finally, your e-mails should always include a “signature” that includes the full range of alternate contact information, including your mailing address, phone number(s), and social media addresses.

As you may be aware, at some point in 2014, the typical website will see the scales tip, when over 50% of online traffic will involve users of mobile devices. Internet users, in general, are characteristically short on patience, and users of mobile devices carry the need for speed to a new level. Anything that interferes with a smooth process can effectively become a roadblock. Typical hindrances (in the eyes of your potential online customers) include:

• A slow or unresponsive website.
• Content that is not easily viewed on a mobile display.
• An overly complex process, including non-essential questions.
• Lack of information. For example, what is the price of a site? What are the check-in and check-out times? Is wi-fi available?
• Lack of social reinforcement. Provide testimonials or links to review sites that will help to assure new customers.

To overcome last-minute obstacles, provide your online visitors with one or more alternate means of contact. Online chat is great, as long as you have somebody available to respond at any given time; however, the single most important alternative is a telephone number. According to a recent Google AdWords report, 70% of users of mobile devices are likely to “click to call” either prior to or rather than completing an online purchase, and this statistic equally applies to online reservations at campgrounds. A smartphone user may be ready to make a reservation but would prefer to do so over the phone rather than fumbling through an online process.

What happens when someone calls your campground in the off-season? Do they get a message telling them that you are out of the office and will reopen in April? If so, you can almost be certain that you have lost a sale every time your phone rings. According to online industry statistics from SeeWhy, an average of only 3% of first-time website visitors finalizes a purchase, with 72% bailing out before hitting the ‘submit’ button. In other words, it could be a long wait before your next phone call, so you need to make each call count!

Of course, callers should expect to reach your voice-mail during off-hours and on weekends; however, if you are available to take a call during those times, do so. The caller will be highly impressed. What callers do not want to sense is a lack of response, whether that is an unanswered phone, a non-reassuring outgoing message, or a phone that is answered in an unprofessional manner. It is essential for the business phone number to forward directly to either the owner or manager of a campground and that the call be either immediately answered or returned within minutes. Do not include an alternate phone number “for a faster response” in your outgoing message. If another number will reach you more directly, forward the call to that number, rather than expecting the caller to write down that number and then place a second call. That second call is unlikely to be made.

When attempting to make the most of e-commerce, online reservations, or any other buying process, the bottom line is for you to put yourself in the shoes of the person at the other end of the transaction. When the transaction involves the Internet – and mobile devices in particular – be aware that the process is time-critical and do everything possible to respond accordingly.