On March 2, 2013 the Evernote team released a statement that their security team detected suspicious activity on their servers.  As you can see in part of their statement below, usernames, Evernote email addresses, and encrypted passwords were accessed.  However, your Evernote passwords are encrypted and are secure.  Encrypted passwords are stored in a way that they are unreadable unless you have the proper key to decode it.  The individuals trying to access the Evernote information did not have the encryption key, which means they could not see your password.

The investigation has shown, however, that the individual(s) responsible were able to gain access to Evernote user information, which includes usernames, email addresses associated with Evernote accounts and encrypted passwords. Even though this information was accessed, the passwords stored by Evernote are protected by one-way encryption. (In technical terms, they are hashed and salted.)

As a security precaution, Evernote is requiring all users to reset their passwords.  If you’ve tried to access Evernote on your smartphone or computer, you may have noticed you are being prompted to enter your password.  If you haven’t reset your Evernote password yet, you will be required to before you can access your account again.  Log into the Evernote website to reset your password.  You will also want to update all of your Evernote apps on all devices.

While our password encryption measures are robust, we are taking additional steps to ensure that your personal data remains secure. This means that, in an abundance of caution, we are requiring all users to reset their Evernote account passwords. Please create a new password by signing into your account on evernote.com.

Keep the tips in the Manage Your Passwords post Sam wrote in mind when you create your new password.  Find something that is easy for you to remember but is something only you would know.  Try not to use words in the dictionary or the names of your kids or pets as someone might easily guess them.  Using a combination of upper and lower case letters and add special characters when possible.

This is an unfortunate situation but I think Evernote made the right decision to have everyone reset their passwords.  I feel comfortable leaving my information with Evernote.  Having your information stored in the cloud makes it very easy to access your information wherever you are and on multiple devices.  But situations like this are a risk that you take when you use the cloud and its why its so important to always use strong passwords.

 

I’ve had several people ask me for help getting started with Evernote which I love because that means I’ve convinced you of how amazing Evernote is. So here is Evernote 102: Your Guide to Getting Started With Evernote.

Sign up for your free account

If you haven’t already, go to Evernote‘s website and sign up for a free account.  Don’t spend the money for a premium account until you are sure Evernote is right for you and the amount of storage you get with the free account is more than enough for the average user.

Install the apps

First, install the Evernote client on your computer(s).  There are apps for Windows and Mac and the app is free, regardless of which operating system you use.  Next install the smartphone and tablet apps, you can find the app in the App Store and Android Market.  Android users, be sure to install the Evernote widget (long press on the screen you want to add the widget to) and you can create new notes with a single tap.

Install the web clipper

The best part about Evernote is the web clipper that allows you to clip sections or entire web pages into a note.  The web clipper also saves the URL the text came from and saves it in the source field of the note for you to access if you need to reference it later.  When you clip a page, you can also pick which notebook to save the note to, add tags, and add additional text to the note.

To install the clipper, go here and drag the web clipper to your bookmarks toolbar.  If you use Firefox or Chrome, you can install the Evernote extension instead of using the web clipper.  Same functionality, but instead of the clipper in the bookmarks bar, its a button in your browser.

Find Your Evernote Email Address

With your Evernote account, you get an email address to use to email notes into your Evernote account.  This is a great feature of Evernote and I use it to forward receipts, trip itineraries, articles from my RSS Reader, and any other information I want to retain and have accessible everywhere I go.  To find your Evernote email address in the client go to your Account Settings, on your web account go to Settings, and you can find the email address in your Account Settings on your mobile app.

Add your Evernote email address to your Contacts and give it an easy name for you to remember.  Mine is setup as “Me @ Evernote” which means I address all my emails to Me and it finds my Evernote address.  You can add @notebook name or #tag name in the subject line to assign a tag to the note.  For more information on using your Evernote email address, check out this article on the Evernote Blog.

Ready, Set, Go!

You’ve got the basics setup and now the best thing to do is to just start using it.  Add new notebooks and tags as you need them.  Its much easier to build your note organization as you go rather than to try anticipate your needs from day one.  I’ve been using Evernote for almost three years and I still regularly make changes to my notebooks to organize my notes in a way that makes sense for the way I work.

Want to take your Evernote skills a step further?  I suggest you take a look at the Evernote blog, forums, and if you are serious about Evernote, consider purchasing Evernote Essentials by Brett Kelly.  Evernote Essentials has been on my wish list for a while and I will be making the purchase sooner rather than later.

Evernote is what you make of it, so make it your own!