With the increase in global web activity, securing one’s digital identity has become a cause of concern now days. Degree of the concern is of quite serious, if not alarming. The spheres of e-mails and other modes of online communications are highly vulnerable to the risks of interception. Hackers are continuously finding new ways of accessing your private data thereby pushing you towards changing your safety measures every now and then. The process is really cumbersome and requires continuous engagement. However, if you can follow certain homemade security tips, you will be able to prevent hackers, up to certain extent, from accessing your e-mail accounts. For your easy reference, 10 such tips are listed bellow. You may add more tips to the list.
1. Design a strong alphanumeric password. This is most important towards erecting a security wall around your e-mail accounts. Choosing a lengthy password using all sorts of characters including special characters and numbers makes your password strong enough to prevent penetration by hackers. A 16 characters password is highly recommended.
2. Check URL. Always be sure to check your URL before entering your logging in details. There exist many look-alike sites that clandestinely seek your logging in details and many fall in the design. Checking URL every time you try to log in is the best way to stay away from fake login pages.
3. Check log in option. Even if you are working on your own computer, never ask your system to remember your log in identity. Never forget to uncheck the option before logging in especially on someone else’s private computer. If you forget to uncheck the ‘remember me’ option, you are surely going forward towards compromising your e-mail’s security.
4. Avoid accessing e-mails at public places. You may compromise your log in details by accessing your e-mails at public places. You do not know what spyware is working to make you fool. There may be some CCTV working to keep a watch on you and to obtain your log in details.
5. Do not open e-Mails from unknown senders. Hackers often send malicious e-mails to spoof and phis away innocent users. Be watchful on such activities. Do not open or try to open e-mails received from unknown senders; especially, be extremely vigilant when such e-mails arrive with attachments.
6. Stay away from clicking on suspicious links. Never tempt to click on suspicious links, even if they seem to come from your known connections. Always check with senders before clicking on such forwarded-links. Most of the hacking instances occur due to such clicking and thereby divulging sensitive personal data.
7. Go for a secondary e-mail account. This is a true safe practice. If you, at all, happen to work on a system other than your own, you must create a secondary e-mail account and work on it. Needless to say, log in credentials of this secondary e-mail account must differ from your original one and you should forward copy of all your e-mails from your original account to this secondary account just to allow you to work on this account. If your account gets hacked owing to working on an unsecured machine, you will be able to save your original account this way. You must be selective while working on this secondary account.
8. Stay away from sharing your personal details with anyone. Take utmost care in securing your personal information on Internet. Any breach in this regard may jeopardize safety of your e-mail accounts.
9. Monitor functions and existence of filters. Custom filters are common phenomenon in e-mail services. Some of these filters may work against you by forwarding your messages to some un-known destination. Check them regularly and find presence of such bad filters. Stay away from any un-recognizable filters.
10. Monitor IP address of your last log in regularly. This is not a preventive measure; but the practice can notify you, if you have been hacked. While checking IP address of your last log in, if you find any un-recognizable IP, then it is possible that you have been hacked. On observing such discrepancies, you must change your log in credentials immediately.
I like them. i try and not access my personal e-mail from public places because of hackers. I think my source is a reliable source it had some valuable information.
It seamed pretty resourceful. It was up to date and helpful.
Learned That Never Leave A Email Open For Long Periods Of Time Because It Can Be A Gateway For Viruis!
Do not share your personal information with anyone.
I agree keeping all your personal information protected is the best way to avoid someone getting your information.
Tahnks God!This is very helpful because all this years I’ve been looking for this kind of information.i find them very accurate.
i have learned that it is got to always check adresses when opening files on the internet, and not leave files open and unatended.
i also think that the information was up to date and very easy to read and helpful.
I have a some what situation about hacking this person I know came to my house and ask me if he could use my computer. Of course I said YES, Anyways about a week went by and my computer started to freak out on me, took it into a person who knows computers well and said that someone tryed to hack into my computer. And told me about suspicious links and so on. I like the piece it gave some good ideas.
All this information seems very accurate. I never click on links I don’t know, and never check my email from anywhere besides my home.
A brief Description of the article is mainly about what “hackers” are and how they work. Hackers are people who can get into computers though “bugs” or other things. They can get any information off of that computer just by hacking into it.
You want to share your personal information with anyone and you don’t want to open unkown emails. Hackers wait for that oppurtunity to do so.
yes this is very helpful because it gave me new information about virues i didnt know about and i use a stong password and i dont share any personal information with anyone.
Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reason, such as profit,protest, they
finding out weaknesses in a computer or computer network and exploiting them.
I learned that I should have a secondary e-mail to protect my primary email. I should never have the computer remember my password even if it is my personal computer. I also learned to keep my password changed for my own protection because “Hackers” are always working to get people’s information.
I did learn from this article that hackers are real and can cause many problems computers are not always safe..
I felt that this article was very knowledgeable. Hackers are horrible and can really mess with all your stuff. Never give out any account iformation or personal information.