Image via Titian [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Decluttering our home every few months involves a virtual declutter these days too. Juggling career, family and lifestyle now includes managing all of our technological devices and synching them all for immediate access. What used to be a few good holiday snaps have now turned into thousands of selfies, choice pics for our Tinder dates and other kinds of digital hoarding. So we connect our computers, iPads and iPhones to the cloud and dump our data there, waiting for our retrieval. We’ve probably lost track of how frequently we do this, what we back up, and on which device.

What is ‘cloud technology’, you mumble? Well, it’s kind of like delivering an online service. The service is the ability to store data from multiple devices to very large public computers elsewhere that are username and password protected. Dropbox and Apple’s iCloud are just two such examples, allowing immediate download and access onto whichever device you happen to be using at the time.

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But at some point on that data journey, your files can be intercepted.

Only you should be able to decide who sees your photos. Image via iStock

This was made all too evident last year when many A-grade celebrities, including Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton, became the victims of cloud hacks. The hackers stole personal, revealing photographs and passed them on to media outlets – for fun, public humiliation, or perhaps just to prove that they could.

Every time we sync to the cloud we are creating a backup of all the personal information we store on our devices. We need to understand this in order to protect our private data. So don’t just stop at putting passwords and lock codes on your phone and computer. Here are the extra-smart ways to protect yourself.

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1. Check your settings

To prevent new things being uploaded, turn off the iCloud backups in your settings. Or, get more specific with what you don’t want being stored. Go to settings on your iPhone or iPad, then tap on iCloud. Choose storage and backup, then manage storage. You might want to turn off your camera roll, or perhaps Google Drive. If you’re totally done with the iCloud, you can delete your account entirely under Settings/iCloud/delete account.

2. Delete what you don't want in the cloud

Maybe you’re not paranoid about theft but you just want to clear some space – if we discuss Apple, for instance, you only get a limited amount of iCloud space per device. To delete what has already been uploaded, follow the steps above, then tap on edit and delete.

Image via iStock

3. Use questions and answers within your password

Hackers create scanning software to search the net for 'questions' that help to hack the 'answers' and vice versa. If you create a password with both question and answer within the same phrase/password (i.e.“mycatsname1969”), this will better protect you from being hacked.

4. Buy extra protection from a third party

Consider looking into new ‘gateway’ devices for the cloud, such as NetApp. These can be either hard or software, and provide a protective layer of security before entering the cloud.

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5. Use Apple's two-step verification

If using an iPad or iPhone, make sure you use the two-step verification that Apple introduced in March 2014. As well as requiring your username and password, there’s a code sent via text message that you’ll need to enter. To get this set up, sign in with your Apple ID at appleid.apple.com. Then go to Password and Security, and follow the instructions at the top of the page. It will at least make your data more difficult, although not impossible, to hack.

6. Don't use a weak password

Make it long and complex. And don’t use your real name as your username – this goes for iCloud, Dropbox, your email account and anything else. Hacking success rate depends entirely on your originality, so be creative. The short one-word passwords will be obtained within seconds. There is password breaker software readily available these days, and remember, learning how to use this kind of software is just a YouTube click away for any doofus.

7. Don't store your passwords on your device

Use a pen while you still know how and keep the passwords with your valuable documents.

8. Don't respond to phishing

This is classically the ‘formal’ style emails that seem to come from a trustworthy company, asking for specific information, tricking you into giving information that will relate back to your password choices.

9. Change your password regularly

Sorry Russell, change is necessary.

10. Don't use single sign0on (SSO) capability

For example, if an online service allows you to sign in via Facebook or Google, don’t do it. It may be easier on the brain, but the ability to hack into your private world becomes much easier. Don’t use the same password for everything.

Remember, you don’t need to back up to the cloud – you can still sync our contacts, calendars and other files by connecting to iTunes on your computer.

Do you store your private files on the cloud? Did the recent hacking scandal scare you to delete or move them?