It is happening more and more these days. People get their accounts emptied and their identities stolen. Whether it be on facebook, google+, online banking, or ebay, people are going to try to steal from you. There are some things you can do to protect yourselfs..
Here are some simple ways to protect yourself from online thieves and hacker
First: Make sure that you use a secure password. I know this goes without saying, but you’d be surprised how many people use the ol’ wife’s birthday or lastname123. The online atmosphere is changing and if you want to be safe, you need to make sure that you be pro-active in your action. Some things you can do to make your password more secure would be to add upper and lower case lettering. Also, adding numbers and punctuation will really beef up the security of your password.
Example of weak password: lastname123
Here’s how to beef up that same password: lAstnamE#123! – Still quite easy to remember, yet will protect much better from online predators looking to hack into an account.
Second: When creating an account on a site and it asks you for a security question (Which is what will be used if you lose your password and need to retrieve it), always use the ‘other’ option (if it is offered). Rather than using the standard questions that it asks you, which can be easily attained if someone spends enough time, fill out your own custom and personalized question and answer. This ensures that a hacker won’t have predetermined avenues to look down to find your information. This is one of the easiest ways to protect yourself and also one of the easiest ways for someone to gain access to your account.
Below is a list of the most used passwords that you never want to use:
1. password (Unchanged)
2, 123456 (Unchanged)
3. 12345678 (Unchanged)
4. abc123 (Up 1)
5. qwerty (Down 1)
6. monkey (Unchanged)
7. letmein (Up 1)
8. dragon (Up 2)
9. 111111 (Up 3)
10. baseball (Up 1)
11. iloveyou (Up 2)
12. trustno1 (Down 3)
13. 1234567 (Down 6)
14. sunshine (Up 1)
15. master (Down 1)
16. 123123 (Up 4)
17. welcome (New)
18. shadow (Up 1)
19. ashley (Down 3)
20. football (Up 5)
21. jesus (New)
22. michael (Up 2)
23. ninja (New)
24. mustang (New)
25. password1 (New)