List on my Blog Entries RE: You've Been Hacked

With the rash of hacked email accounts in our communities, I thought it would be helpful if I created a list of my blog entries that address "What to do if you are hacked."

• Important!  What To Do If Someone is Using Your e-Mail
• Warning!  LinkedIn and eHarmony Hacked
• Details on How To Create a Strong Password

The second article links to explanations of why and how hackers go after your email account.

Details on How to Create a Secure Password

Other articles on this blog discuss changing your password if your on line email account is hacked.  I haven't gone into detail about how to construct a "secure" password.  I have an article you should read on how to do this:  "How To Make Strong Passwords Stronger."  This is an important and informative reference.  

Facebook Security Setup- Since Security Issues Should be Your Focus Right now

The world malware community is becoming much more sophisticated and aggressive.  Why?  I can think of a number of reasons.  First, more and more people in the world are obtaining enough education to participate.  Second, the financial situation around the world, but especially in Europe, the US, and Africa, has been in a sustained recession/depression.  People are desperate to find other sources of income.  Third, the cyberwars are underway, with countries and ideologies wanting to inflict financial and physical ruin on each other.

This brings me to Facebook. Facebook is a prime target for this community. You can get names, email addresses, and personal information. How is the personal information used? Someone can log into your bank account. They fail because they don't get the password right. But the bank asks a personal question. The "someone" has your Facebook (Or LinkedIn for that matter) personal information available and can then answer the personal question. It is reported that Mitt Romney's personal email account was hacked this way.

This is a long way around to warning you to closely manage all the personal information on the internet, but especially Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+. Here is a link to a good article on Facebook security. You can also go to the links at the bottom of the article for more information.

Warning! LinkedIn and eHarmony Hacked

Both sites have had their user passwords stolen AND the results published on the internet.  For details, look at these articles:

• LinkedIn and eHarmony Confirm Passwords Were Hacked
• LinkedIn confirms hack, over 60% of stolen passwords already cracked
• Passwords Used by the Conficker Worm

I can't stress enough the importance of looking at these articles. For those who wonder what happened to your ATT/Yahoo account, these articles show you how it was done. The "salting" discussion shows why some sites are safer than others, even though you might not have the strongest password. The net on how "they" do it is that there are lists of passwords out there that are sold to the bad people. The bad people don't try to break your password by random choices, they use these lists in intelligent ways to limit the number of tries to any one account.

Verizon Eliminating Unlimited Plan

Verizon has offered an unlimited data plan for about $30.  A new tiered plan was announced last summer, essentially eliminating unlimited data.  However, the unlimited plan was “grandfathered” to all active customers.  Well, the boss-man has announced that the grandfathering is going to be revoked.  The details can be found here. 

There is something you can do, if only to let off some steam.  You can sign a petition to continue the unlimited plan.  The petition can be found here.