An article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal by Cassell Bryan-Low described how easy and inexpensive it is to hire someone to hack into just about anything. They talk about a site called hiretohack.net that advertises on the web that it can hack into just about any online email account depending upon how complex the password is, who the email service provider is and how quickly the customer wants the hack done.
One of the messages here is that you need to be both smart and careful when it comes to using online email services. Email is not secure. It’s not confidential and it can be hacked.
If you want secure email then you must sign up for a secure email service. Electronic faxes (faxes sent using email) are also not secure and if you ask the people at eFax about their security, they will admit, albeit reluctantly, that their service is not secure.
Our sister site BigNewsNow.com has numerous articles that talk about email accounts that have been hacked and used for nefarious purposes.
And we continue to receive spam-scam email after spam-scam email from hackers purporting to be the USPS, UPS, The Better Business Bureau, PayPal, the New York State Police, the IRS, NACHA, and even Starbucks.
You should also avoid using the same password for all of your accounts for obvious reasons. I suggest that you use a password application such as 1Password to help you not only generate new passwords but also keep track of your passwords. We’ve written about 1Password several times. We use it and we like it but you should make your own informed purchase.
Be safe out there.
