We are either victims of hacking
or we hear ordeals of friends
and colleagues whose accounts
have been cracked.
You know your account has been
compromised when people listed
in your e-mail contacts report
being flooded with spam
messages sent from your
account.
Or, you start receiving a bevy of
“bounced” e-mails from random
addresses you don’t know.
Sometimes you are not able to
log into your account or change
its settings, or you’ve discovered
the settings have been altered.
You attempt to use e-mail, and
find it has been blocked by your
provider.
In most cases, when you are
hacked, your password will no
longer work for your e-mail
account.
And if your account is blocked, it
is probably because your account
was spewing out spam by the
millions, forcing your provider to
shut it down until you regain
control.
But this should not incapacitate
you for long. All web-based email
services such as Gmail, Hotmail,
and Yahoo Mail have password
recovery options which you
should use as soon as you are
aware that your account has
been compromised.
Most of the time by using the
password recovery/reset feature
you should be able to regain
access to your account.
You can get instructions on how
to reset your password and
regain your account from their
email respective company’s
website.
Once you have regained access
to your account, the first thing
you should do is change your
password.
Choose a strong and unique
password. A strong password is
recommended to have at least
eight characters which includes
both letters and numbers and
also other characters such as !
@#$%^.
You also must also put in place a
hedge around your account to
ensure that you are not an easy
prey next time.
While there aren’t any hard and
fast figures on what the number
one cause of e-mail infiltration is,
the overarching theme usually
points to one extremely weak
link: user behaviour.
One reason spam is still so
prevalent is because it actually
works. Many people open a spam
message, read it, and are
tempted by whatever wares or
schemes are offered.
You don’t need to be naive to
have your account compromised;
you will only have to be briefly
caught off guard; so remain
vigilant and trust your instincts
on anything that looks
suspicious.
Generally, a hacker will use your
account to automatically post
links on each of your friends’
walls.
Benedict.
