Help

[the winky one]

Had an e mail from Google
apparently somebody in the London area had accessed my e-mail account and found out my password.
Google advised me to change my password which I did.
How have they managed this?

[medlocke]

Dunno, had my gmail done a couple of months back, i'm not very sociable so i just made a new account and sent my new email to the 3 people i can be bothered with, right pain in the arse though changing contact info on all the sites i go on

[Wigan_forever1985]

there are many ways in which people can obtain others emails and passwords and it doesnt have to be you being unsafe online sometimes companies we trust with our data let it slip.

Sorry if this bit is patronising but as i have no idea of your computer knowledge ill assume you are an average computer user please don't be offended if it sounds like im teaching you to suck eggs.
The best way to stay protected is to change you passwords regularly, its a pain but its the simplest and easiest way remember when creating passwords they should be a decent length at least 8 characters and should contain a mix of capitals, numbers and symbols easiest way is to replace common letters with a symbol.

eg

wiganrock - weak password
W1g@nr0cK - strong password

The other thing i do is have a junk/spam account. Quite often you are asked to enter an email online for things that arent that important, i have an email set up for this, so unless its something official i do not use my normal email account and im very careful were i enter that.

Android phone users be particularly careful when you sell/dispose of phone that you reset your Google account password.

In short it may not be your fault at all but regular password changes will help in future

[keptinthedarkfans]

Had an e mail from Google
apparently somebody in the London area had accessed my e-mail account and found out my password.
Google advised me to change my password which I did.
How have they managed this?

Be very care full when answering these queries. This is the way people access your details. They send e mails saying there has been a security breach in your account and would you go into a link and answer a few details this is when they get into your details.Never open a link in your e mails to verify anything the people in question ie google /e bay /pay pal would contact you through your private account using your name or user name. I have learned this through an expensive mistake with following a link in my e mail for pay pal who said my account had been hacked and password needed urgently changing.Within 2 minutes of answering the link £300 was taken to pay a gambling dept in greece.

[the winky one]

there are many ways in which people can obtain others emails and passwords and it doesnt have to be you being unsafe online sometimes companies we trust with our data let it slip.

Sorry if this bit is patronising but as i have no idea of your computer knowledge ill assume you are an average computer user please don't be offended if it sounds like im teaching you to suck eggs.
The best way to stay protected is to change you passwords regularly, its a pain but its the simplest and easiest way remember when creating passwords they should be a decent length at least 8 characters and should contain a mix of capitals, numbers and symbols easiest way is to replace common letters with a symbol.

eg

wiganrock - weak password
W1g@nr0cK - strong password

The other thing i do is have a junk/spam account. Quite often you are asked to enter an email online for things that arent that important, i have an email set up for this, so unless its something official i do not use my normal email account and im very careful were i enter that.

Android phone users be particularly careful when you sell/dispose of phone that you reset your Google account password.

In short it may not be your fault at all but regular password changes will help in future

Thank you for that, I don't think you are patronising at all.
You're right I only have basic knowledge of computers and am grateful for any advice.
as you say I will change my password on a regular basis
Once again thank you for your help.

Christine

[the winky one]

Had an e mail from Google
apparently somebody in the London area had accessed my e-mail account and found out my password.
Google advised me to change my password which I did.
How have they managed this?

Be very care full when answering these queries. This is the way people access your details. They send e mails saying there has been a security breach in your account and would you go into a link and answer a few details this is when they get into your details.Never open a link in your e mails to verify anything the people in question ie google /e bay /pay pal would contact you through your private account using your name or user name. I have learned this through an expensive mistake with following a link in my e mail for pay pal who said my account had been hacked and password needed urgently changing.Within 2 minutes of answering the link £300 was taken to pay a gambling dept in greece.

O M G how horrendous!...did you ever get the money back? probably not I would imagine...that's just awful.

[keptinthedarkfans]

Hi yes I did get money back. But only because bank rang me at home minutes after transaction but took weeks to change all my account and password numbers.I had to put a stop on all my accounts and still wary of e mails and will not pay for anything online.

[Owd Codger]

How many more times do people have to be told by the media that they do not contact you by telephone, email, text, fax or whatever, for bank account details, passwords, etc?

Thousands of these scam messages are sent out and it is law of averages that some fall for it.

Anything that evens mentions bank details, passwords or anything to do with personal details should be binned immediately.

[keptinthedarkfans]

How many more times do people have to be told by the media that they do not contact you by telephone, email, text, fax or whatever, for bank account details, passwords, etc?

Thousands of these scam messages are sent out and it is law of averages that some fall for it.

Anything that evens mentions bank details, passwords or anything to do with personal details should be binned immediately.

NOW THAT IS PATRONISING.
We don't all live in WW perfect wonderland.Yes some of us are human and make mistakes.Get over yourself.,

[Wigan_forever1985]

To be honest there are a lot of helpful tips to keep safe online that even people who are more tech savvy dont know about.

if i had to give my top 5 they would be:

1) Make sure that any website you are putting card details in starts with https:// not http:// in newer browsers this can be easily seen by a green either background or section of the address bar

2) Up to date antivirus, sounds simple but many forget to update theirs, remember there are free solutions such as avast and avg if you cant afford to pay for one.

3) dont install google toolbars or any other toolbars and make sure that extensions and toolbars havent been installed without your knowledge. Most of these arent malicious but they will slow down your computer and are a pain, if you notice words on a website become underlined and when you hover over they show product info chances are your browser has had a piece of software installed on it

4) Always go to source - WW is on the right to a certain extent, companies DO send out emails sometimes to alert of suspicious activity on your account, however the key difference is they will ask you to log in through their website not through a link in the email. When in dont go to source, so if you get an email from Natwest and you bank with them, ring your branch or log in through their website to confirm, i used to do the same if i got a phone call from the bank i would ask of its importance and if they said it was important i would hang up and ring the bank back. If in doubt go to the source of the info and dont click on links within emails (that goes from ones from friends to) unless you are expecting them or have verified their authenticity.

5) Last but not least - make sure you have a strong password on your wireless, i urge you to change it from the one that it came with if you havent and if you havent got a password get one on there straight away!. Again make it long and complex to ensure it cant be hacked, remember you are responsible for what goes on, on your internet.

If anyone has any problems or questions feel free to PM me i might not be able to get back to you straight away but i will eventually ive worked in i.t for 10 years so theres not much i havent seen