Ever since someone wanted to store information on a list of paper and keep it secret, lock boxes or secret cavities were made to store those secrets that only the keeper had the key, combination, or knew the location of where the secret writing was kept. The writing could be a collection of correspondences, a list of things to accomplish, or secrets that others are desired to not know, there evoked a need safekeeping the writings from other people who are not desired to see them on those people's wishes. As technology evolved, there evolved and developed new ways of storing information securely. These methods involve obfuscating data or restricting access within a application without authorization. In this article, I would explain why information is important to keep secret and secure.
Keeping information secure is important to people, because they generally do not want other people to know what they are thinking about, their recent actions on their computer, and their financial information. In general, people would rather not allow access to their computer to other people they know to see what they do on their computer, including applications they use and sites they browse, because they want to establish privacy from people that come to their house. People should use passwords set up on their computer for user login to keep other people out of their user account, so they do not learn their browsing habits, see their applciations, or have access to their valuable files stored on their computer's SSD or encrypted USB drive. Not only should physical access to computers in person be restricted for users not authorized by the computer's owner to use that computer, but computers should be secured from network attacks by criminals on the internet that would connect to your computer from browsing websites, downloading files from the internet that would possibly have malware on them that would send information about your computer activities and exfiltrate files from your computer to their own computer which would be detered by running an antivirus with a firewall and stateful https inspection that inspects network traffic for malicious signatures. This is important to not get infected by people who wanted to spy on other people and steal information that lead to cyber attacks like identity theft and online bank robbery by snagging bank login credentials from HTTPS traffic just to transfer your money from their computer by using a VPN and a stealth browser which allows them to not submit identifying information to the bank's website that helps cybersecurity specialists track down the cyber criminals. They would attack cryptocurrency and financial assets online as well that can be accessed through the internet on exchanges in similar ways.
Two-factor authentication is a must in 2026 when hackers sell password and login credential combinations to the most popular email services as well as other frequently used services that require login online through a browser. Other hackers buy these lists on the dark web to gain access to ordinary people's accounts to proliferate unauthorized access to other online accounts other than email by using password resets to gain access to accounts and lock out the real owner from using them. This personally happened to me with my Steam account. Someone logged in with my password without changing it, and that hacker loaded hundreds of free games on my account to possibly sell time for player online on sites like EBay to earn money from the exploit. I changed my password and locked the hacker out. Two-Factor authentication is offered by almost every website and online service to add a second layer of security beyond the password, so once the login and password is put in, the user would have to put in a code from a auethentication code generator which is usually 6 to 8 digits long like from the Microsoft Authenticator app that is linked to the 2-factor authentication service on the website with a QR code or generated code to generate codes on a recognizable algorithm that the website approves. Once the code is entered from the authenticator, it is validated and the user can authenticate and log into the system, app, web service, or website.