This month a friend of mine lost access to their Hotmail email account. They blamed Microsoft for something that they really shouldn’t have and this month I’d like to ensure that the same doesn’t happen to you.
If you have an email account as I’m sure many of you, do then the way that you ensure that no-one else can read your emails is by protecting it with a password. Everyone has two pieces of information that they need to remember in order to access their email; 1) their email address and 2) their email password. It may well be that this information is automatically stored on your computer, be that the case or not, you still need both pieces of information in order to view your emails.
Now, there are criminals at work, using pieces of software called ‘bots’, constantly trying to access your email. They do this by firstly knowing your email address and then by trying to guess your password (that’s why your password really shouldn’t be granalacant123 for example). It’s also likely that if you use the same password for all of your online services and have done for a few years, then that password will be known to these criminals through large online data breaches – you can check to see if your password is known through services like https://haveibeenpwned.com – just enter your email address and they will tell you which services you use that have been compromised.
Now, what happens if one of the bad guys does get access to your account? They are likely at some point to change the password (in order to stop you getting access) and it’s at this stage that you will need piece of information number 3 – your security information. This information is VERY important and although you rarely use it, it’s in instances like this that it becomes critically important – without it you potentially won’t get your account back again.
Often the security information is linked to your mobile phone (and this is where my friend shot himself in the foot), many companies will ask you to verify who you are by sending a code to your mobile phone (this is all done when you create the account in the first place). If you change your mobile phone and don’t update your email account with the new number then when you really need to validate your email account you won’t be able to and you may permanently lose access to your account. Remember, it’s not Microsoft’s fault if you don’t keep your security information up to date.
Updating this information isn’t difficult and I hope that this article prompts you to go and check that your security information is up to date, and unlike my friend, it saves you some heartache in the future 🙂