You hear about it almost everyday and you see it every time you check the latest news. Thieves are always trying to get into your accounts and steal your passwords. If it is not 
done through your local computer it is getting done through companies in which you have accounts stored.
Just this week Google, Yahoo, Twitter and others announced that over 2 million stolen passwords were uploaded to the Internet for criminal eyes to view.
The companies affected seem to think most of the passwords were stolen from individual computers that have been infected with Malware. They also claim that most of the passwords were simple arrangements like password, 1234, 5678 etc.
Many of the major companies such as Facebook and Twitter will automatically force affected users to reset their password for security reasons. This is done automatically in many cases and when you try to log into your account, you will be advised that you will have to reset your password.
Having a weak password can cause big headaches if you have your e-mail account on a server like AOL or MSN. This can be especially true if you never set up an alternate contact like your cell phone or another e-mail address. If you get locked out of your account, you will need a way to prove that you are the rightful owner of the e-mail account. If you were trying to recover your account from MSN, for example, you would have had to set up either an alternate e-mail address or a cell phone number. When you attempt to reset your password, you will be asked to have MSN send a one-time code to either your phone or an e-mail address.
AOL appears to be even stricter when it comes to hacked accounts. They will actually blacklist your account if they see suspicious activity occurring within your account. So if an intruder gets control of your e-mail and starts spamming everybody in the US, your account will be shut down to help prevent the nasty stuff from spreading any further then they already have.
In some instances, we have seen cases where we had to set up brand new e-mail accounts for some clients simply because they never added the secondary recovery options. Remember, it only takes a few minutes to do this so. In the event of the worst-case scenario, you will be covered.
We have talked a lot about recovery, but what about prevention? In almost every case, stolen passwords are made too simple or they are made up of easy to remember things like a pets name or maybe a birthday or anniversary. Passwords of this nature are just not acceptable and are dangerous to use. The convenience and ease of remembering may come back to haunt you one day. So be sure to get all those easy passwords taken care of! Try to use a combination of upper case, lower case, numbers and perhaps a symbol in order to have a secure password. Make sure it is not a phrase or sentence and it would be hard for you to remember unless you had it written down somewhere.
Simply put, prevention is a lot easier then recovery so take the extra time needed to make your accounts safe. This is especially true if you are using bank accounts or online bill pay.
Article By, Ross Deprey
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