Goodness, there have been a lot of people I know who have had their email accounts hacked in the last few weeks! It seems to have escalated suddenly--not that there haven't been hackers all along, but it is uncommon for me to know of so many victims all at the same time!
My sister's case was the worst that I have heard of, as she was locked out of her account altogether--they changed her password! Well, if they can hack to get in, they can obviously read what you have in your saved files, so I spent a great deal of time Friday clearing out my email files. No more stored passwords, account numbers, etc. are kept there. I still need to go through the sent files, but there are only about 200 that haven't been cleaned out, so that won't be too bad.
In addition to clearing out my files, I reset several key passwords so they are not as easy to decipher--you know mixing numbers in and that sort of thing. What a PAIN!
I still have a lot of accounts that have the same password, but coming up with 150 unique passwords seems a bit over the top, and really, who cares what my Blurb account password is? **What is Blurb, you say?** My point exactly! I sorta get why you have to set up accounts to shop and so on, but sometimes it is a frustration because it will be months between times and I forget my user name or my password.
I also closed out my Google+ account, which they assure me will not affect my other Google products, such as my blogger accounts, Picasa albums, and emails. Ornery and I are currently discussing whether or not to get rid of Facebook as well. I told him I would do it if he did, but he isn't ready to cut the cord just yet. :) I am down to one person in my friends list not related by marriage or blood. It won't be too hard to say goodbye to that.
I know that once information is on the www it is really hard to get it off, if it is even possible at all. However, with all the privacy invasion and so on that is taking place, it seems like it might be smart to limit the portals of information, no?
What do you do to protect your identity online? Do you regularly change up your passwords?
I don't change my passwords but I've never had a problem w/ being hacked. It seems that the emails that get hacked the most are those from yahoo.com. I could never get rid of Facebook....I LOVE that site!
ReplyDeleteMy sister's email was with gmail, and I was hacked several times via Facebook, but yes, it does seem Yahoo gets hit the hardest--could be because they have the most subscribers? I never have checked.
DeleteStupid hackers! I'll tell you though, it does freak me out a little bit that it used to be when I Googled my last name, hardly anything came up. Now...BAM! everywhere! I know I put myself out there when I started a blog, but in retrospect, I would not have used my last name in my e-mail, and I would have tried to be more anonymous...
ReplyDelete-andi
It's all scary. I don't think anything is safe or has been for a long, long time.
ReplyDeletethanks for the reminder. I'm off to delete!
ReplyDeleteI got hacked for the first time recently. I changed some pass words, but not all. We take a risk w/ any kind of online activity these days. It's really sad.
ReplyDeleteI try to make sure I don't write anything I wouldn't want thrown back in my face since it is pretty obvious most of our privacy is up for grabs anymore. I could go offline and only communicate with phones and mail, but since 'they' already know all about me, instead of dropping out, I hope and pray everything I do online brings God glory! I gotta say, though, why would anyone want to hack into and lock a person out of their gmail account-- mind boggling!
ReplyDeleteI am on AOL, and I have got hacked once before. I called up AOL and they recommended changing my password periodically and always to type it in every time instead of having the computer remember it.
ReplyDeleteKathy
http://gigglingtruckerswife.blogspot.com
Not sure how having to type it in every time would make a difference if you have a good firewall, but then what do I know? I have heard you should change your passwords frequently. That is a pain--I have about 100 different accounts requiring passwords--that's insane!!
Deletetm