Protect your online accounts - 10 Quick Tips
• Always keep your account information up to date, particularly secondary email addresses associated with your webmail account. If you lose access to your account, any password reset information is likely to be emailed to this secondary account (unless the hacker changed this too)
• If a website lets you choose or create a secret question and answer in order to retrieve or reset your password, make sure its something that only you know the answer to.
• You should make a note of your main IP address (the numerical identifier allocated by your ISP when you go online) because some companies request this information to help you prove your retrieval request is genuine. To find yours, go to What is My IP (www.whatismyip.com)
• keep a note of as many account details as possible to help you identify you. When did you create your account? How many contacts are in your address book? What are some of the subject’s lines in your inbox? When did you last login?
• Avoid using the same password for different accounts. At the very least ensure your main webmail account password is different to any others
• If any credit or debit cards are stored with the account, cancel them immediately to prevent any unauthorised transactions.
• Should one of your accounts be compromised, change the passwords immediately on any other online accounts that share the same login
• If your main webmail account is compromised, and you use this email address to log into other sites, immediately change the email address associated with these sites to a secondary one. This will prevent the hacker from being able to reset the passwords on those accounts
• Choose a strong password with a mixture of letters, numbers and characters - you can test the strength using password meter (www.passwordmeter.com)
I hope you find this information helpful; should you need any further information or general help, please feel free to contact us at Green Sky IT anytime, day or night on any of our contact numbers.
Remember the internet is fun, but stay safe online.