How to keep your email account secure? This is the question troubling millions of people nowadays. Increasing number of cyber attacks are making the users tensed for their Email security. Email has become an integral part of our day to day life. New generation is using emails from the very early age and even older people who didn’t use it in their early days are feeling its need and they are also using email services for most of their mail related works.
We can easily send and receive emails without going anywhere and can read, see, listen and watch any attached file or attachment. Most people don’t know how important it is to keep their email account secure. There are many email providers which include some free like Gmail, yahoo, Hotmail, Outlook and some paid email providers like Verizon, AOL, and AT&T. They provide different security layers to keep your account secure but still, there are some loopholes and some mistakes done by the users only which results in compromising of email accounts.
Every one of us who is using any email service for any purpose must know about its security features and tricks which let us know that how to keep our Email account secure. We need to register our email address to access most of the things over the internet. Shopping, social networking, professional networking or even for banking purposes we need to register our email id. Our email id is our basically our online identity.
We store some of our most sensitive and private data in our emails. What if someone hacks your email id password? He can read all your emails, chats, personal and private information. He can even get access to your other accounts like Facebook, Amazon, Paypal and your other banking information. Moreover, he can send emails with your identity and receive emails from others as well. That’s why it’s vital to know how to keep your email account secure whether it is Gmail, yahoo, Verizon, Hotmail or any other account. Go through following steps and keep your online identity fully protected.
Create a Unique Username
We need to choose a username to create an account. We normally want to have it as our original name but in most cases, it has been already taken. In that case, we choose other similar names and chances are there that if you are not using your email id often you can forget the username. Choose a unique username which you can remember easily and others can’t guess it easily.
- Don’t make the username very complex or hard to remember.
- Some websites suggest you few option when your searched username has been already taken, you can choose them if it’s easy but don’t if you don’t like or can’t remember it.
- Think about your unique quality or any adjective and try to make a new username by combining the both.
- For most of the email service provider’s username is 6-14 characters long so keep it in the range.
- Google don’t feel any difference among robert.clark, robe.rt.clark and rober.t.cla.rk. As it doesn’t understand ‘.’ within the username. So avoid the ‘.’ to avoid unnecessary complexity.
- Stay away from funky usernames if it’s a work email id.
Create a Hack-Proof Password:
The password is the most important think when it comes to your security. If someone knows your password he can steal your identity any time. So make sure you follow the rules and create a hack-proof password for your email account. Use the different passwords for all the important websites like email and banking. Your password must have symbols, numbers and mix case alphabets which make it harder for anybody to guess.
Don’t use any personal information like your mobile number, date of birth or your social security number as your password as these things are easy to guess and can increase the chances of getting the account compromised. You need to keep your password strong and safe so don’t write it anywhere at your home or office desk.
Few examples of Bad password: QWERTY, QWERTY123, Robert1234, 12345678, 87654321
Few example of good Password: R9o8b7e6r5t4 (Mix of name and numbers),
OctMax@1993 (Mix of name and mon/year of birth), C1e9l9i3na (Mix of spouse’s name and wedding’s year)
Sign up for 2-Step Verification:
Always choose 2 step verification process. Its ads an extra layer of security and keep your account more secure. You need to register a mobile number and a recovery email id to get call or message whenever you or someone else is trying to log in your account from any new location or new device.
Review Attachments:
Don’t open any attachment directly; you get from any unknown or suspicious account. Remember if you get any PDF or Doc or text file with the extension .exe it is a potential virus. Don’t open that attachment and delete it from your emails. Anybody can send you any email with any other name saying you won a lottery or cash price or something similar. Never trust on such offers and don’t share any information with them.
Limit the applications which have access to your personal information:
Normally whenever we install any app they offer their term and conditions to accept and we do it without reading. Most of those apps ask for our personal information. Don’t accept any apps which look suspicious and can harm you or misuse your information. Limit the number of such apps and download and use only well-known, legitimate and necessary applications. Don’t accept any terms and condition which ask for more private information.
Update Recovery Information:
Keep your security information like recovery email id, security question and recovery mobile number updated. It will help you in recovering your email id in case you forget the password especially in the case of banking related email id. Choose the strong security or secret question. Don’t choose it like what is your date of birth or your pet name or your mobile number. Keep it personal.
Always use an antivirus:
Always keep an updated antivirus installed on your system. There are lots of antiviruses some of them are free and some are paid. Avast, Avira, McAfee, Norton and many other antivirus software are available in the market. Try to get paid ones because if something is really useful no one offers that for free. If not then at least have a free one. It will protect you from accessing infected websites and getting any virus on your computer.
Stay updated:
You should always stay updated with latest changes taking place in IT industry. Every day many new viruses and antiviruses are getting created and installed on different machines. There are different techniques developing each day which help hackers to get access to other people. You need to stay updated and keep an eye on latest happenings in this field. It will protect you from new hacking techniques and viruses.
