By now you’ve probably heard about Sarah Palin’s hacked Yahoo account, and maybe even wondered: Could that happen to me? According to PC World, it depends on three factors: your password, your password-recovery choices, and your reliance on public Wi-Fi hotspots. Here’s an excerpt:
Strengthen Your Recovery Information. Now. The security question Sarah Palin chose didn’t turn out to be so secure. Most online services ask similarly innocuous recovery questions when you sign up. As this case demonstrates, it isn’t hard for someone to track down that kind of basic information about you and reset your password themselves — no matter how secure the password itself might be.
See, it might be tough for a hacker to guess your password (especially if you’ve followed our various tips for creating stronger passwords), but guessing the answer to your security question and then resetting your password (thereby gaining full access to your account) might prove pretty easy, as the Palin incident proved. Read PC World’s full story to learn how to keep your account safe.
