Account Security

Published by Nick on October 27, 2019October 27, 2019

rsonally. When a data breach occurs in an organization that holds your information, those details/that data could be swiped and used for malicious purposes. That data can include your social security number, credit card information, private health information, account details, username and password, and much more.

Many people are still using the same password for multiple online accounts, which makes the username and password vulnerable to hacking. During data breaches, online credentials are stolen from organizations and sold on the dark web. Once they’ve accessed your accounts, a hacker can blackmail you, drain your bank accounts, or steal your identity. To combat this, you can check verified websites such as https://haveibeenpwned.com to see if your email has been found on the dark web after a data breach.

If your email address has been compromised, change your password immediately to ensure hackers can no longer have access to your accounts. Haveibeenpwned.com also offers a monitoring service where they will email you when they find your information in a new data breach.

If you are looking for a proactive step in securing your online accounts, consider using a password manager tool. This tool will create secure and unique passwords as well as keep track of all of them for you. All you have to remember is your master password to access the password vault. Your master password should be long and difficult to guess. LastPass is one such free password manager that can be used on all your devices. Find more information, visit https://www.lastpass.com/

If a hacker gets your username and password, you can use one more tool to deny them access to your account: multi-factor authentication (MFA). This tool will require you to enter an additional code after your password. That means a hacker would need your username, password, and MFA code to log in to your account. Though it might seem like a hassle, this extra step is something you will get used to; at some point, it may be the only thing standing between a hacker and your information, so it’s definitely worth it. The Google Authenticator app is great for setting up MFA on most accounts. Banks and other businesses that send you a text with a special code any time you log into your account from a new device are using MFA.

Password manager tools and multi-factor authentication are both excellent ways to keep your online accounts safe. They also make things easier by storing your online credentials and warning you about unauthorized access to your accounts.