You should change your passwords often. Do NOT use passwords that are known entities in your life. Examples are your petnames significant others name, children's names, your address or a nickname. In fact, you should make it a random set of numbers and letters. But if you do use names or things familiar, then make it as obscure as possible. If you were a jefferson airplane groupie in the 60's, you might pick something like this, J35534son making the E a 3 and the F a 5 and the R a 4.
A straight word can be hacked by a computer. The odds of getting hacked are greater by the shortness of the word. At this point in time, you should never use a password with less than 6 characters, the longer and more random the better. Always have at least one number in the password and a few Capital Letters can't hurt either.
NEVER mix your social and financial passwords. Each online financial institution should have it's own password. And don't have your computer remember them. It is WAY too easy to hack into your computer and get the complete password. Having to type it in each time is worth the effort. If you don't need banking online, then don't do it at all; it is convenient access, but not worth it if you are not willing to take the necessary precautions.
Have one of your friends try to figure out your current passwords, if they guess it or even come close, you aren't secure.
Protecting passwords is good, but in the majority of cases Facebook, MySpace, etc. accounts are hijacked via phishing. What happens is that someone sets up a site that looks like the login page of MySpace or whatever, then you either get an email or click on a link within someone else's profile or comment on the site, that asks you to log in. Since the URL is disguised in such a way that it makes you think it's MySpace, you don't think anything of it and type in your username and password.
A lot of good browsers (e.g. Firefox) have some anti-phishing protection built in, but the best bet to stay safe is to just not type in your credentials on any site that you didn't type in the URL by hand or from your bookmarks. If you do use these sites and get an email telling you to click on the link to see something, just type in the URL yourself on your browser and there is always a way to see what you are being notified about from the site itself rather than the email.
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Raf
Awesome. Thanks.
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Watered Garden
This is why I don't have any of those things. I'm getting very worried as it is that someone will access this forum and figure out who I am.
WG
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pawtucket
You should change your passwords often. Do NOT use passwords that are known entities in your life. Examples are your petnames significant others name, children's names, your address or a nickname. In fact, you should make it a random set of numbers and letters. But if you do use names or things familiar, then make it as obscure as possible. If you were a jefferson airplane groupie in the 60's, you might pick something like this, J35534son making the E a 3 and the F a 5 and the R a 4.
A straight word can be hacked by a computer. The odds of getting hacked are greater by the shortness of the word. At this point in time, you should never use a password with less than 6 characters, the longer and more random the better. Always have at least one number in the password and a few Capital Letters can't hurt either.
NEVER mix your social and financial passwords. Each online financial institution should have it's own password. And don't have your computer remember them. It is WAY too easy to hack into your computer and get the complete password. Having to type it in each time is worth the effort. If you don't need banking online, then don't do it at all; it is convenient access, but not worth it if you are not willing to take the necessary precautions.
Have one of your friends try to figure out your current passwords, if they guess it or even come close, you aren't secure.
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mchud11
Thanks Paw.
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Mister P-Mosh
Protecting passwords is good, but in the majority of cases Facebook, MySpace, etc. accounts are hijacked via phishing. What happens is that someone sets up a site that looks like the login page of MySpace or whatever, then you either get an email or click on a link within someone else's profile or comment on the site, that asks you to log in. Since the URL is disguised in such a way that it makes you think it's MySpace, you don't think anything of it and type in your username and password.
A lot of good browsers (e.g. Firefox) have some anti-phishing protection built in, but the best bet to stay safe is to just not type in your credentials on any site that you didn't type in the URL by hand or from your bookmarks. If you do use these sites and get an email telling you to click on the link to see something, just type in the URL yourself on your browser and there is always a way to see what you are being notified about from the site itself rather than the email.
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