A Hacker’s Attack

Will you survive a hacker’s attack? Hackers invade your privacy and abuse your good name. Do not ever consider your email on your email provider’s server (yahoo / gmail / etc) as private. Get it off there as soon as possible.

This guide is intended for PC users. I don’t know about cell phones. It is not my field of expertness, but I’m sure some of this may apply.

The base of all security is vested in your passwords. This is where they will attack you first. A password like ‘1234’ or ‘baby’ is worthless. Easy to remember and easy to break. A password like ‘eg839Kdu3SH1iw’ is difficult to remember and even more difficult to break.

Change your password often and never go back to a previous password.

Good security starts at home. Make sure that every user account on your PC has a password. Especially so for the Administrator’s account; for windows leave it blank by default. A PC, with a Administrator account that has no password, is a hacker’s paradise. He can do everything; even format your non-system drives!

Never leave your email on the mail server for long.

Use an email client like Outlook Express to download your mail and set it up to delete the mail on the server immediately after download. Set up your email client to log on at least every hour to download your email.

Never ever leave your address list (contacts) on your email provider’s server (yahoo / gmail / etc). Leave the hackers with nothing to gain; and you with nothing to lose if your email provider is hacked.

Run a virus scan every day to check for key loggers and other spy ware. They record your keystrokes and collect other personal info on your PC and pass it on to another party.

If you do all this you will be fairly safe. Note that I said fairly safe. You can never be 100% safe for there are other ways to penetrate your PC, but that requires a very high degree of skill not found with the everyday hackers.

Enjoy your day.