My Yahoo post WAS real! ComputerLady's website is legit

[Guest guest]

Too funny, Merav.

Yes, my post about yahoo accounts and password reminders WAS real! I've

been getting the " computer lady " emails for years and have learned a lot

from them. I've not been hacked and do change my passwords now and then, and

never use the same password for different accounts. But, I realized today

that I'd not changed my yahoo password for at least 3 years. (Bad Jan.)

What I posted earlier below.

To those of you that have yahoo accounts, it's probably time to be sure

you don't get hacked and send out a ton of junk emails to everybody in

your

account. It's been happening with more frequency lately. And, it's not

your

computer that's hacked, but your online yahoo account.

I just read the info below, from the " Computer Lady " and went to Yahoo,

updated my account to a new, more complex password, and also set a " Seal "

as

outlined by Yahoo, to prevent Phishing.

Something worthwhile to take 5 minutes to do! Thanks! Jan Patenaude

_Hacked Email Account Info_

(http://askthecomputerlady.com/questions/2010/12/hacked-email-account/)

by _Computer Lady_ (http://askthecomputerlady.com/questions/author/admin/)

on Thursday, December 23rd, 2010 | _No Comments_

(http://askthecomputerlady.com/questions/2010/12/hacked-email-account/#respo

nd)

Dear Computer Lady,

Someone has gotten into my computer and sending crazy emails to everyone

in

my address book and pretending gthey are from me.

Please tell me what i can do.

Thanks, Durwood

____

Dear Durwood,

I see that you are using a yahoo email address.

This means that the person has not gotten into your computer, but they

have

hacked into your yahoo email account.

Since you appear to still have access to your email, the first thing you

need to do is change your password. This will prevent the person from

accessing your account and sending more messages.

If you cant get into your account, you should try to contact yahoo and at

least get them to shut down the account so that no more emails can be sent

in your name.

If you have any other online passwords that are the same or similar to

your

yahoo password, you should change those immediately. Many online companies

will send your password to you in an email message if you forget it. It

would be very easy for this unknown person to access your other passwords

in

this way.

In the future, you really need to make sure you are using secure

passwords.

Here is how I create a secure password.

First, start with a short phrase, we will use the phrase,

I like peanuts

for an example.

For your password, pick one word, and change the vowels to numbers or

symbols. Now the phrase looks like this:

I l1k3 peanut$

The next step is to mix up the words in your phrase:

l1k3 peanut$ I

and finally, put the words together to get rid of the spaces in between:

l1k3peanut$I

Now, you have a secure password with one capital letter, two numbers, one

Symbol and should be fairly easy to remember.

Then, in your master password file/list, codify this to yourself to help

you recall it later. For example, in a text document named Yahoo, write:

Yaho- love nut legume # uppercase too - (whatever, JUST something so you

remember your basic format, but nobody else in a million years would know

what it

meant.)