We’ve all heard the stories – either from the news, from those forwarded email blurbs, or from our friends about how someone’s privacy was invaded online. And I’m sure at some point we are all guilty of thinking that it won’t happen to us – that the safety measures we have in place will protect us. But the truth is that our protection software can only take us so far. Your best defense against leaving yourself open for these scams is knowing that they exist, that they are out to get you, and how to protect yourself.

An article I read recently told of a man who had hacked into 3,200 email accounts. His goal? To find nude or compromising pictures of women, and then post them to their respective Facebook accounts. But how did he do it? He used information freely available on his victims’ Facebook pages to hack into their email accounts!

You know when you go to a website you use every once in a while and…oh darn!…you forgot your password! What do you do? You click the helpful link to have them resend it to you. But not so fast! You have to answer your security question first! No one could ever guess that! Right? Think again!

Just today I created an account on a site and these are the security questions I could choose from:

• Mother’s Maiden Name
• First Pet’s Name
• First School Attended
• Town You Grew Up In
• Favorite Food
• City of Birth
• Father’s Middle Name
• Best Friend’s Last Name
• Favorite Ice Cream

Now be honest: How many of these answers could be found on your Facebook page? Almost everyone has their city/state listed, current as well as past. That’s how all your high school buddies find you, right? What about those adorable pictures of Champ, the best dog you ever had? And let’s not forget all those snapshots of you and your best bud at the beach, out shopping, goofing around? All of your personal and intimate details can and will be used against you!

Once this hacker got into the accounts, he would immediately change the password, locking out the real user so that he could take his time, looking through all of their precious email, finding all of their secrets, and then exposing them for all their friends and family to see.

If you take one thing away from this article, let it serve as an eye-opener for you. Start researching how you can be attacked and what you can do to safeguard yourself and your online account information.

Amanda Mili
Your Business, By Design
Ottawa, Ontario – Serving Canada and the U.S.
email: [email protected]
website: www.amandamili.com