You're bored one day and decide to go online and check your email. Geeze who doesn't do this on the daily basis?? You try to log in and notice that it isn't accepting your account password. At first, you think well maybe I just typed it in wrong, but then after the fourth or fifth attempt, you realize that there's no way you could still be inputting it wrong. Not thinking about it, you blow it off and choose to reset your password using the security information you provided at account setup. Not thinking, you decide to log on and check your social networking sites. You notice your Myspace password isn't working, but you was just online earlier this morning, and have not changed the password. Then you go over to Facebook and also notice that you are unable to log in. Now you only use one computer to log into most of these accounts, and when you don't, you are ALWAYS careful to log out of your profiles, and delete the site cookies. So what's going on here!? Congratulations, you have been a victim of account hijacking!
Yes, I am the victim mentioned above. The first question I asked myself is just how did someone get into all my accounts. I don't use the same passwords for each, nor do I log into public computers unless absolutely necessary. Well, it isn't as complex as you think. In all of the accounts that were hijacked (and it was 4 of them), only ONE of them gave access to the rest. People don't realize it, but EMAIL ACCOUNTS are the LEADING cause of account hijacking. Once a person has access to your email account, they have access to ALL other sites using that email address. Account hackers today do not target your social networking sites directly, but when you have your email address visible to the public, that opens up all other sites using this address. They could go in, and request new passwords for every other site, and steal your identity.
Now there are several ways you can prevent this from happening to you. For one, you should start by not giving your passwords to ANYONE ELSE. Make them sacred, and also encrypted. Pick passwords that aren't obvious. This means avoid using birthdays, pet names, cities, or school id numbers as your passwords. Try to make them as long as possible, alternating between lowercase and uppercase letters, and numbers. Also, everyone knows that most, if not all, sites require you to input security questions just in case you forget your password. Make sure your answers are not obvious. For example, if a security question asks: What city were you born in, you wouldn't put just plain: "New York City". Try something less obvious like "The Big Apple", or if it was a specific section, try "Cradle of the Union" in place of Albany. It's also effective to refrain from logging in on a thousand different devices. This puts you at risk automatically, because of programs called key loggers. Key loggers record the key strokes that a person uses at a specific site, and is one of the leading causes of credit card fraud in the US. This is like verbally telling someone what your password is, and they get in that way. If you do log into other devices, be sure to log out, and clear all the browser's cookies and cache. Those are just some of the many things you can do to protect yourself from account hijacking. For more ways to protect yourself, try eHow's Guide to Protecting Your Email From Hackers.
Yes, I am the victim mentioned above. The first question I asked myself is just how did someone get into all my accounts. I don't use the same passwords for each, nor do I log into public computers unless absolutely necessary. Well, it isn't as complex as you think. In all of the accounts that were hijacked (and it was 4 of them), only ONE of them gave access to the rest. People don't realize it, but EMAIL ACCOUNTS are the LEADING cause of account hijacking. Once a person has access to your email account, they have access to ALL other sites using that email address. Account hackers today do not target your social networking sites directly, but when you have your email address visible to the public, that opens up all other sites using this address. They could go in, and request new passwords for every other site, and steal your identity.
Now there are several ways you can prevent this from happening to you. For one, you should start by not giving your passwords to ANYONE ELSE. Make them sacred, and also encrypted. Pick passwords that aren't obvious. This means avoid using birthdays, pet names, cities, or school id numbers as your passwords. Try to make them as long as possible, alternating between lowercase and uppercase letters, and numbers. Also, everyone knows that most, if not all, sites require you to input security questions just in case you forget your password. Make sure your answers are not obvious. For example, if a security question asks: What city were you born in, you wouldn't put just plain: "New York City". Try something less obvious like "The Big Apple", or if it was a specific section, try "Cradle of the Union" in place of Albany. It's also effective to refrain from logging in on a thousand different devices. This puts you at risk automatically, because of programs called key loggers. Key loggers record the key strokes that a person uses at a specific site, and is one of the leading causes of credit card fraud in the US. This is like verbally telling someone what your password is, and they get in that way. If you do log into other devices, be sure to log out, and clear all the browser's cookies and cache. Those are just some of the many things you can do to protect yourself from account hijacking. For more ways to protect yourself, try eHow's Guide to Protecting Your Email From Hackers.
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