How to secure your Dropbox account

There is no perfection in the world of technology. Heck, there’s no perfection in life. Thus, one is constrained to mastering the delicate balance between convenience and security. Dropbox is a very convenient file hosting/sharing/back-up service that is used by millions worldwide.

Dropbox has been in the news lately, with allegations that user login details have been compromised and leaked. The company however strongly denies this. Either way, it is better to be safe than sorry. Thus, I give you some security steps that if followed, could go a
long way in securing your Dropbox account whether your login details were compromised or not.
Change Your DropBox Password. Regularly.

It’s a good advise to change your passwords regularly, anyway. A 6-monthly cycle is a good one but at least once a year should be the barest minimum.

Use a STRONG password.

Give yourself a slap for me, if your password appears among the list of The Top Worst 500 Passwords of All Time. Seriously though, your password should be a healthy combination of alphabets (combine lower and upper cases), numbers and special characters with a minimum length of 8 characters in total.

If you can’t be bothered with generating your own password, you’re welcome to make use of strongpasswordgenerator.com – although, you may be left with the conundrum of where/how to save your randomly-generated password since you’re not likely to remember it easily.

Note, some services reject weak passwords anyway.
Enable 2-step authentication

Login to your Dropbox account. Click on your name on the top-right corner. Go to Settings >> Security.

Go through the steps under Two-Step verification to enable 2-step authentication on your Dropbox account.

Enter Your Mobile Number
Dropbox will send you a text message to help authenticate you if your Authenticator app is not available. It’s also helpful to write your Recovery code and keep it somewhere very safe, offline.

Conclusion
While no system is 100% fool-proof, you can go a very long way to secure your Dropbox account should you follow the steps listed above. The tips can also be applied to most other online services like email, social media accounts, domain name accounts etc.