Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Change Your Passwords Often!

That's right, no matter how insignificant you think you or your information is, the person hacking into your accounts doesn't know that, until AFTER he/she gains access.

I have had the same password for years on my email account, and I figured it was secure enough for a nobody like me, a simple password with upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols. It was a password that cannot be found in the dictionary, and does not pertain to anything relating to me. I figured that was secure enough, but give someone long enough, and sooner or later through the process of elimination, your password will be figured out. By changing your password often, it will make it harder for someone to gain access to your accounts.

Anyways, as I log into my email account this morning, I find that my account had already been accessed, and all of my emails recieved that I know for certain had NOT been read, had been marked as having been read, except for a few that came in just a few minutes earlier. So, someone managed to access my account, and look through my messages for anything that might contain important information. At least this was not a malicious attack, as nothing seemed to have been changed, much like a con-artist or blackmailer would sort through your file cabinet or trash can looking for any pertinent info they can use. So, after a long morning, I have managed to change all my passwords to all my accounts that I hold, each one having a different password, and each one will now be changed on a regular basis.

The best advice I can give is for you to do the same thing: to change your passwords often, making sure that you do not use the same password for different accounts, and make sure it's a password that is hard to guess, and is not in any dictionary, the best of which always should contain a mix of letter case, numbers and symbols. It's better safe than sorry, don't be lulled into false sense of security, always keep a vigilant watch over your accounts, log into them at least weekly to check for changes or for signs of intrusions.