Protect Your Accounts From Hacking

What does Sarah Palin, Paris Hilton, Facebook, and the Pentagon have in common? They have all been hacked. Don't be fooled by thinking hackers aim for only high profile targets. Hacking of personal data is on the rise and not many of us are safe. Reports of hackers breaking into personal email and social networking accounts such as Facebook and Twitter have increased sharply over the past few years.

What is hacking?

Hacking is a blanket term used to describe when someone has gained unauthorized access to your email account, computer, network, or online security system. Essentially, its like breaking and entering but on your computer using the internet. If you have any sort of questions pertaining to where and ways to make use of HPS, you can call us at the website.

How does hacking work?

Is hacking easy? On a basic level, hacking is not a difficult task. More people have gained the skills to perform the steps needed to gain unauthorized access your accounts and steal information. For example, stealing a Facebook or email password and ID to gain access to someone's personal data is essentially hacking. Many hackers simply guess your password. It is well known that sadly most people use 1234 and "password" as a password on their email accounts. Your email address is seen as a gateway to your private online information so this is often the target of most hackers. More sophisticated methods are used for stealing someone's information. Phishing, Spam, Trojan Horses, and Spyware are all common was for online criminals to get into your accounts. There are also extremely sophisticated hacking methods that I cannot explain and probably most people lack the vocabulary to understand. These hackers break even the most extreme security measures of corporations and governments.

How can you protect yourself against hacking?

There is only one answer to this question. You should beef up your security online. This is not a difficult task at all. The first step you should take is creating strong passwords for all your email accounts. A strong password is a long random sequence of letters, numbers and any "special character". An example of a special character would be @ or & sign. You might want to use Microsoft's free password strength checker:

Another way to increase your online security is to have adequate spyware protection. If you are have no idea what program you need, there are tons of excellent software already installed on Windows that will protect you. However, Microsoft's Security Essentials may require a download or upgrade for earlier version of Windows. Also practice common sense, avoid pages with malicious software, be careful about giving out personal data to websites. Don't click on links from emails of unknown origin. Also upgrade your Spam protector in your email account. Your internet browser shows a padlock icon for secure log-ins. If it is missing, don't proceed with entering your information.