3 Simple Steps to Make Your Gmail Account Hack-Proof [VIDEO]
With all the news about Senior U.S. political and military officials having their email accounts hacked (specifically Gmail, although Hotmail and Yahoo accounts as well), taking a few minutes from your already tight schedule to make sure your email account is hack-proof may certainly keep you away from losing time (and composure!) in the future.
Here are three simple steps to take that will make sure your Gmail account remains hack-proof. If such term “hack-proof” doesn’t exist for you, (nowadays hackers penetrate even the most sophisticated U.S. Govt. data servers-good point) then let’s just say that giving your email account an extra barrier of security will make it highly improbable that hackers get into your apprized information.
1. Choose a hard to guess, rare password
Obvious enough, one should never choose a password that hackers may guess easily. Avoid using words that you find in the dictionary and come up with an alphanumeric phrase with symbols. If you want to add one extra layer of security, you can choose some letters to be capital letters while others lower case letters.
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If you use numbers in your password, say 1xman5$wolv7, you may want to establish some easy to remember pattern and change the numbers every once in a while to 2xman6$wolv8 for example (added 1 to each number). The better you are at being unpredictable, the harder you make it for hackers to do their crime.
2. Use Gmail’s Two Step verification
Every time you or someone else tries access your account, Gmail will send a unique code to your mobile phone which must be introduced to be granted access. This means that although hackers may have your username and password, they still won’t be able to access.
If your Gmail account has been hacked and you haven’t formatted your drive since, then chances are you will be hacked again (you may still have malware on your comp). Thus, the Two-step verification should become essential if your plan is to continue using Gmail, want to keep your information safe, and have a mobile.
To learn more, click here.
3. Keep healthy email account-related habits to keep computer healthy
Keep your computer healthy by making sure anti-virus and anti-hacking programs are in place and are up-to-date. Running in-depth scans to track any malicious hardware is helpful but keeping good habits such as avoiding accessing your Gmail account in public used computers (internet café’s or hotel lobbies) will surely keep you away from having your username/password stolen by any malware existing in such comps.
