One of my customers had their MSN email account hacked. The hacker changed their MSN password and started sending out emails to their contacts. Unfortunately, the customer has forgotten their security question answers, so MSN will not let them back into their account to recover their mail, contacts etc. It is a mess.
This can happen to you. To safeguard yourself:
1. ALWAYS write down the security questions and their answers to all your accounts. You think you are going to remember the answers, but you may not.
2. Configure a local mail client (Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail, Thunderbird) to download your online mail. If you need help configuring this, let me know. The reason to do this is so the client will download your mail and your contacts. By doing this, you will have a copy of your mail saved to your hard drive. If you only have this online, and you get hacked, you are SOL. I’ve seen it happen that the hacker will delete your mail and contacts.
3. I know you have a gazillion passwords, however, use a DIFFERENT one for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter than you do for your email. Your passwords should be at least 7 characters, include a capital letter and a number. WRITE your passwords down! If you do online banking – make it a completely different password for all the others.
4. Make sure to UPDATE and then run your spyware cleaner at least once a month.
If you are hacked, please contact me as I might be able to help. Don’t call Verizon, AOL, Microsoft etc. They can’t help you, nor is it their issue. Your email provider (Gmail, Hotmail, MSN) etc. are only going to help if you remember your security questions. Some of them won’t even talk to you unless you pay them as you have a free account and support is not free.
Personally, I’d advise you not rely on online mail without configuring your local client so you can have a backup. Hacking has become very common and it is a nightmare to unravel.
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