Another wonderful tutorial and helpul for you people. You've heard cases of hacked
facebook accounts, right?
Anyone can be a victim due to
ignorance but that is not an
excuse for leaving your login
unsecured. Although there may still be flaws even when
proper security measures are
taken, you're still guaranteed
a certain degree of security
when you take those basic
precautions.
The internet is a big place full of good guys and
lots of crazies, we all know
that, but some believe the
only way to have fun is to
unlawfully gain access to
your account and change your password, making your
own account inaccessible to
you. Facebook, paypal, liberty reserve, MSN, yahoo and
gmail accounts can all be
hacked and that's a fact you
don't want to overlook.
The
most common type of hack
attack today is phishing.
"Phishing is a way of attempting to acquire
information such as
usernames, passwords, and
credit card details by
masquerading as a
trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.
Communications purporting
to be from popular social web
sites, auction sites, online
payment processors or IT
administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting
public.
Phishing is typically
carried out by e-mail spoofing
or instant messaging,[1] and
it often directs users to enter
details at a fake website whose look and feel are
almost identical to the
legitimate one."
That is just how phishing is
described on wikipedia and
you don't want to lose your
facebook or paypal account to
that right? There are
softwares that crack passwords using bruteforce or dictionary attacks and this is why you must make your
passwords extremely strong.
Now How Do I protect Myself From Getting Hack?
There are several
precautions to take in order to
secure your password and
prevent yourself from getting
hacked.
1. Using a strong password This is the most important
step to take. Never use a
password that can be easily
guessed like your child's
name, your middle name,
phone number and so on. Also, never use a word that
can be found in the
dictionary, your password
can be easily cracked using dictionary attack . A strong password consists of letters,
figures and symbols all mixed
up randomly and I
recommend up to 10-14
characters. An example of strong password is this:
^nG='@9y5Y*%mF
Now, I'm not saying the
password above can't be
cracked, but it reduces the
chance of getting hacked to
almost 80% when compared
to using a password as simple as your mobile phone
number.
2.
Beware of links you follow : You might seen a tempting
link in your email or someone
just posted and interesting
link on facebook. Always
think twice when websites
ask for your log in details.
There's a hack method called
phishing that fools you to
believe you're logging in to a
legitimate site whereas the
site you're about to log in to is
only a 'photocopy' of the one you think it is. Yes, this
method has ben used to
hijack lots of facebook
accounts in the past and it's
still being used till date to
hack paypal accounts.
When you receive a link asking you
to log in to your libert reserve
account, for example, did you
take the time to check your
address bar to see that it's
actually libretyreserve.com and not libertyreserve.com?
Can you notice the similarity
in he two addresses? Once you fall victim to this
hack attack, it doesn't matter
anymore whether your
password is strong or not, the
hacker gets your login details
in plain text.
3.
Be careful with softwares you install : Downloading and installing
every available software from
questionable sources can get
you into trouble. Did you
know some programs contain
spywares that spy on you and report everything you do on
your computer to some
hacker sitting somewhere in
a room in another part of the
world? Did you also know that
keylogger programs can record every little keystroke
you make on your PC and
send it to a hacker's email?
Are you aware that cracks
and keygens often contain
malicious softwares embedded? I'll advise you to download
only from certified sites like
filehippo,
brothersoft,
softpedia,
filehorse and others sites like
these especially if you don't
know much about internet security.
4.
Use different passwords for your accounts : Let's assume someone gets
to know your yahoo
password, the person will
definitely try that same
password on your facebook,
hotmail, gmail and even paypal accounts. You know
what would happen if you
happen to use the smae
password all through and
that is why you should try to
use different passwords for your online accounts.
5.
Always update your antivirus and always use the best around : Your antivirus's virus
database must be regularly
updated. Why? This gives it a
better chance to detect
malwares and spywares that
may try to steall your password.
6.
Do not open spam mails : Do you often receive some
stupid mails alerting you of
winning some lottery you
never played? Such mails can
be tempting and I'll advise you
not to even open them. They may contain links to phising
pages or attachments that
contain spywares and
malwares.
7.
Use SSL (HTTPS) encryption where applicable : When you're using
https://, you have a certain degree of
protection. A secure
connetion (as oppossed to
http:// ) only implies that no one gets to see or know what
you're doing online and your
sent and receive data is
encryted. This is why all email
providers and some social
networks offer you encrypted login. Some sites like
facebook and gmail give you
the option in your account
settings to always use
SSL
when you're logged in and I
guess you should always use this where applicable. You should also know that
legitimate and certified stores
and online shops ought to
use
https:// so as to protect
your credit card details when
shopping.
8.
Beware of expired or invalid SSL certificate : Here is a note of caution,
when you're logging in to a
site and your browser reports
that the certificate has
expired or invalid, you should
not proceed unless you know exactly what you're doing.
there are bodies that issue
this SSL certificate and
illegitimate sites do not have
valid certificates and a
legitimate site can never encrypt your setting with an
expired or invalid SSL
certificate.
In a case like this, you should
know someone is tampering
with your connection or trying to fool you. Although these suggestions
can get you a long way in
preventing your password
from getting hacked, it's not
100% guaranteed that you're
safe but it's better to do what you can to secure yourself.
You definitely don't want to
be a victim of a hack attack.
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