Over the last couple of weeks, we have seen an increase is spam emails being sent from our Clients Yahoo accounts. This also includes SKY and BT email addresses which all run off Yahoo servers.
If you have a Yahoo account (or one of the others), your friends may have told you they received a blank email from you, with just a link showing in the body of the text. This link is likely to be for porn or viagra etc.
These emails are caused by databases being accessed by hackers, spam and malware, trojans and spyware. Whilst a variety of causes can be attributed to the issue, you can easily stop this problem.
Generally, people rarely change their email password and this is an open invitation to spammers and hackers. Further, the personal information linked to your account, such as mothers maiden name, first pet etc, is never changed. It is imperative that passwords are changed frequently and even the security information should be changed.
Whoever you are with your web based email, Google, Yahoo, BT etc, ensure you login at least once every couple of months.
First change the security information. For questions such as Mothers Maiden name, you can use any name, just don’t forget it. Never use your real date of birth (unless for a secure financial site).
Once you have changed your security information, change your password. Make the password at least 10 characters, use punctuation symbols such as £!*, use numbers and use capital and lowercase letters. Whilst this seems very complex, it will protect you. Even complicated passwords can be remembered if you use a generic word. An example would be E13phant1033*
Finally, never use the same password for all your accounts. It is too easy for a scammer once gaining access to one account, to get access to all your other details. And don’t forget, once you have changed your password, you will need to update your devices such as phone and tablet.
Stay Safe!!
