Written by: Muoka Chibuzor |Edit Article
Most people
if told beforehand that their emails would be hacked by their sheer ignorance, they would
refute such possibility and claim it’s not possible due to the fact that they
think that the hackers will stop them at junctions, just like highway robbers and
ask them for it, or maybe slightly possible if only they lose their devices
such as mobile phones and laptops etc.
As you relax
some others are constantly on a plan to invade your privacy. And one way they
can do that is by hacking your email, which might contain valuable information
that will make you heartbroken if exposed.
Most people
do not use their Emails only for sending messages, some others see their email
as a storage bank for some files, passwords and documents they would love to
access from any part of the world, wherever they might find themselves.
Lately a new
Email hacking pattern has been discovered.
One day you
will open your mail box and see a massage asking you to view a particular
document, below this message they will inscribe that it’s of great importance
that you view this document, probably a PDF file.
When you
click on the document, which will appear as an attachment to the message sent, It will open
a new webpage telling you that the document is secured and then they will lure you
by showing you the logo of a company you may know, in this example the hacker
used Adobe logo.
When you click the view
on Adobe as shown in the example above.
A new page
will open up, asking you to put in your email address and password so as to
view this very important document. The appearance of this webpage might appear
so convincing to be secured. They will also tell you on the webpage that your
information is under lock or secured. Why don’t you ask yourself why will this
company demand for my email password? A password not related to their company? What will they do with it?
Once you fill-in
such information and click the submit button, your information is automatically
saved in their data storage server. And as you await to view the document, you
will be told that the document you want to view does not exist.
To prove
that, we used a fake email – fools@yahoo.com
and password – 12345678 on the
filling boxes and they accepted it and told us that the document does not exist.
Document
does not exist!
If you are
smart enough, you will immediately change your email password, if they have not
eventually opened your mail box before you.
So you see
that apart from losing your devices and being forced at a gun point to expose
your email details by hoodlums, you can also give your data away unknowingly. This
calls for carefulness in handling our passwords at most especially when even viewing mails we receive from both known and unknown people.
Because even if they
know your email address but don’t know your password, there is no call for
alarm. But if they lay hands on your password, it’s a goodbye to your email and
the data you saved therein.
Ways to
avoid Your Email being hacked
1. Do not give your Email
password especially to any website in the internet, you can submit your
email address only to a website you feel is competent to be able to receive
their updates or messages, but not your Email
Password!
2. Make your password had to guess, by making it a
combination of numbers (1,2,3,4,9) , alphabets including capital letters (A,B,V,K)
and small letters (a,b,v,k), and symbols (*,&,^,%,$,@,#,!) let your
password be between 12 – 20 characters.
3. Keep devices
you feel that can expose your passwords intact and also know the kind of people
you allow to touch or use you devices.
4. Some
Email Companies, allow a two-step verification system that will enable make
your email very much secured even if the hackers get your email address and
password.
Hula! Thanks
to this recent innovation by various email companies, am happy to tell you that
I can gladly paste my email address and email password right here and even if
you copy them and try to view my mail, you would be stopped by a verification
system. But I won’t do that because it’s sheer foolishness.
Details of the two step Email Verification
System
At this moment
the only email company I know that supports that is Yahoo mail, and if you have a yahoo mail and you haven’t setup your
email verification system then do it right after reading this article.
It’s called two step because you will have to verify your identity twice before logging into
your email account.
1. The first verification is when you login with your Email username and Password.
2. The second verification is when you will be asked to
verify any of the email recovery options you filled in your email registration.
Such as your mobile number and your recovery email. They will verify your
mobile number by sending you a text or by calling, and then they give you the
verification code for entering your email.
They can
also send the verification code to your recovery email. This second
verification is very important assuming that the hacker has already gotten your
email username and password.
When they try to login with their computer, the
second verification will stop them because that computer they used to try
invading your email has never been used to view your email account before.
How to enable the 2 step verification
1. Go to
your yahoo email account personal settings.
2. Click on
Account security and fill in the details required
- Your
mobile number
- Your
recovery email address [this is another email account you may have]
3. Click yes
to activate the two – step verification system [additional security]
I hope you
learnt something from this article? Your comments will be appreciated.
Enjoy your
life devoid of breach of privacy!
Subscribe to our Email Updates to get the latest Articles in your Email instantly: Join our Email subscribers.
No comments:
Post a Comment
RULES FOR COMMENTERS: - 11/30/2018
1) Its good to say your mind about what you have read. Please do make ethical comment(s).
2) COMMENTS WITH UNACCEPTABLE LINKS (URLs) WILL BE DELETED IMMEDIATELY BY THE COMMENT MODERATOR.
If you won't abide by the rules please do not comment.
Thanks.