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Did you just order your data encrypted, encoded, obfuscated, hashed, scrambled, salted, and peppered?

There are lots of cryptography terms that are thrown around and often misused. As someone who has been responsible for managing Compensation, HR, and Payroll IT systems one way or another for the past ten years at FedEx, I have a lot of experience protecting data. Part of my responsibilities has been to help my business partners understand the difference and value of each. In this article, I’m going to share some of my favorite concepts and in what context they apply.

By the end of this article, you will have a basic understanding of these terms:

Encrypted
Hashed
Encoded
Obfuscated
Scrambled
Salted
Peppered

Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) – what to do and why

You should be using Two-Factor authentication (2FA). If you aren’t, let’s dive into what this all means, why you should do it, how to get going, and a word of caution.

First off, 2FA sounds complicated and it actually is pretty straightforward. This article unpacks some of the complexity and what you can do right now to increase your personal security.

In short, 2FA is using two separate ways to confirm your identity when logging into systems. It is this combination that makes accessing your information secure.

Password Managers – Simple recommendations

Let’s get this out of the way – you need a Password Manager. If you don’t have one, spend 15 minutes doing that right now.

I have a couple of recommendations of which ones worth using and a few that aren’t and why.

There are many apps out there and I have two password manager recommendations. Most higher-rated apps perform the same basic function and do a great job at it. Spending time trying to figure out which is the best or reading a dozen reviews probably won’t help all that much.