Protection of email address

[bootneck02]

The reason I have been off line for several days was my email address was hi jacked and I received thousands of emails so many it crashed my Internet suppliers servers and I had to reinstall Linux Mint Cinnamon and change my email address. I am obviously back on the run with a new address but what security measures do I need to undertake. Any advice is welcome.

 

[muckshifter]

There is not a lot anyone can do once their email password is compromised except change the password.

Most hackers collect passwords using malware that has been installed on your computer (or mobile phone if you have a smartphone). No matter which operating system you use, be sure your antivirus and anti-malware programs are up to date. Linux is not immune.

Change your password and make it stronger.
Do this after your AV / AM are updated or the hackers may collect your new password as well.

• Strong passwords do not have to be hard to remember, they just have to be hard to guess.
• Make your password at least 10 characters long, and use capital letters, lower case letters, numbers and symbols.
• Do not use information about yourself or someone close to you (including your dog or cat!) like name, age, or city.
• Do not use words that can be found in a dictionary, these are easy for hackers to break, even if you spell them backwards.
• Text messaging shortcuts can help make strong memorable password creation easier. For example L8rL8rNot2Day! translates to later, later, not today.

 

[bootneck02]

Yes I agree with you my new email security code is now letters and numbers, so got my fingers crossed for the future.

 

[bootneck02]

Is there much email hacking about and if so should people being advised by their Internet provider because if it has not happened to you do not realise it is happening and it is a bugger to sort out.

 

[Becky]

Good advice

To add to this, don't use the same password for everything. Ideally you should have a different password for everything, but that is obviously difficult to keep track of and remember. One of the best ways to do this is to use a password manager. That way you only need to remember one password, which you use to access the password manager, and all your other passwords are stored for you. I use KeePass

 

[bootneck02]

Oh by the way this also applies to Microsoft OS's

 

[EvanDavis]

Oh by the way this also applies to Microsoft OS's

All the years I have used M$ I have never had a virus or had an e-mail compromised. In the short time I used Linux and OSX ( Apple ) I had my e-mail compromised twice and the OS hit with a nasty more times than I have fingers.

 

[bootneck02]

The hack of Linux Mint happened in early 2016 and I have only just been effected by it, my guess is that the results of the hack are only just coming to fruition. My advice to anyone using Linux Mint at around that time would be that you change your email password ASAP to a more secure one ASAP of at least 10 mixture of letters and numbers. As far as Microsoft is concerned the data mining issue and the expense of running safely the OS is a concern to many people with limited budget, also consider the amount of nasties out there for M$ against any distro's of Linux.

 

[Abarbarian]

Good advice

To add to this, don't use the same password for everything. Ideally you should have a different password for everything, but that is obviously difficult to keep track of and remember. One of the best ways to do this is to use a password manager. That way you only need to remember one password, which you use to access the password manager, and all your other passwords are stored for you. I use KeePass

I am just in the process of changing over from RoboForm to KeePass I have used KeePassX in the past also.
One reason for using KeePass is that it can be used on Windows and Linux. When I get a bit more time and if I can track down which box my usb sticks are in I will try out the KeePass version that you can run on a usb stick.

 

[Abarbarian]

All the years I have used M$ I have never had a virus or had an e-mail compromised. In the short time I used Linux and OSX ( Apple ) I had my e-mail compromised twice and the OS hit with a nasty more times than I have fingers.

Well your compromised e-mail was not caused by your linux os unless there was some operator interference I am guessing.

As to Apple, well..........................

Are Macs safer than PCs?

Apple has traditionally marketed its systems as being more secure than those running Microsoft Windows, but how true is that?

Seems like Apple talks the talk but does not do the walk

Mac OS acquired ASLR in late 2007 (Mac OS X v10.5, aka “Leopard”). Unfortunately, Apple’s implementation is not as advanced as that in Windows, and hence it does not provide the same degree of protection.

Apple said it planned to improve items such as ASLR in its next release of Mac OS, but some five years later we are still waiting.

An if Mac's are so safe how did this happen ?

Last week, there was a lot focus on the security of Apple Macs after the Russian security firm, Dr Web, revealed that they had found a botnet comprising over half a million infected Mac computers.

Macs were becoming infected with Flashback malware after users were redirected to a rogue website from a compromised site. JavaScript code was used to load a Java-applet which exploited a vulnerability (since patched).

The thing that surprised many of us was the scale of the botnet.

Mikko Hypponen, Chief Research Officer at F-Secure, put it very well when he said that, proportionally, the Flashback Trojan was as widespread amongst Macs as the notorious Conficker worm had been amongst Windows-based PCs.

Oh and by the way that article mentioned above ................. it was from 2012 and things have not got any safer since then..... in fact they have got a lot worse.

 

[bootneck02]

So the result of this conversation is that no OS/distro is immune from attack but less likely with Linux. Perhaps Linux distro need some sort of protection for security. In my case the virus did not attack my PC but my Internet providers servers on my email account.

 

[bootneck02]

All resolved now a long 21 character password in place

 

[bootneck02]

Hi Roundshaw_Lad welcome to PC review, enjoy and please join in, we don't bite honest.